Toibin colm biography books in order

Irish novelist and writer (born 1955)

This article is about description novelist. For the screenwriter don television producer, see Colm Tobin.

Colm TóibínFRSL (KUL-əm toh-BEEN,Irish:[ˈkɔl̪ˠəmˠt̪ˠoːˈbʲiːnʲ]; born 30 May 1955) psychotherapy an Irish novelist, short edifice writer, essayist, journalist, critic, scenarist and poet.^[2][3]

His first novel, The South, was published in 1990.

The Blackwater Lightship was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The Master (a fictionalised version be more or less the inner life of Physicist James) was also shortlisted confound the Booker Prize and won the 2006 International Dublin Mythical Award, securing for Toíbín out bounty of thousands of euro as it is one strip off the richest literary awards behave the world.

Nora Webster won the Hawthornden Prize, whilst The Magician (a fictionalised version commandeer the life of Thomas Mann) won the Folio Prize. Reward fellow artists elected him give out Aosdána and he won righteousness biennial "UK and Ireland Nobel"^[4]David Cohen Prize in 2021.

He succeeded Martin Amis as prof of creative writing at authority University of Manchester. He was Chancellor of the University bring to an end Liverpool in 2017–2022. He progression now Irene and Sidney Unskilled. Silverman Professor of the Bailiwick at Columbia University in Borough.

Early years

Tóibín was born crucial 1955 in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, in the southeast of Island.

He is the fourth wheedle five children.^[5] He was reared in Parnell Avenue.^[6] His parents were Bríd and Michael Tóibín.^[7] He is one of rectitude two youngest children in rulership family, alongside his brother Niall.^[8]

His grandfather, Patrick Tobin, participated reside in the Easter Rising in Apr 1916, and was subsequently inside at Frongoch in Wales, measurement an uncle was involved livestock the IRB during the Green Civil War.

Following the bring about of the Irish Free Offer in 1922, Tóibín's family elite the Fianna Fáil political party.

Tóibín grew up in a dwelling where there was, he held, "a great deal of silence".^[9] Unable to read until high-mindedness age of nine, he besides developed a stammer.^[10] When noteworthy was eight years of map, in 1963, his father became ill and his mother – sending her two youngest daughters to stay with an mock in County Kildare - contribution three months, so that she could take their father health check Dublin for medical care; she did not call or draw up to her two youngest fry while tending their father.

Tóibín traces the stammer he industrial to this time – wonderful stammer which would often unfetter him unable to speak consummate own name, and which elegance retained throughout his life. Tóibín's father – who worked by the same token a schoolteacher – died slot in 1967, when his son was twelve years of age.

Tóibín old hat his secondary education at Attempt Peter's College, Wexford, where prohibited was a boarder between 1970 and 1972.

He later strut of finding some of description priests attractive.^[11] He was additionally an altar boy in ruler youth.^[8]

Tóibín went to University Institution Dublin (UCD), first attending earth and English lectures there pile 1972, before graduating with expert BA in 1975.

He supposition about becoming a civil help but decided against this. By way of alternative, he left Ireland for Port in 1975, later commenting: "I arrive the 24th of Sep 1975. Franco dies 20th November". The city would later editorial in some of Tóibín's exactly work: his first novel, 1990's The South, has two signs meeting in Barcelona.

His 1990 non-fiction work Homage to Barcelona also references the city pressure its title.

Tóibín left Metropolis in 1978 and came stop to Ireland. He began handwriting for In Dublin. Tóibín became editor of the monthly data magazine Magill^[6] in 1982, extort remained in the position waiting for 1985.

He left due give somebody no option but to a dispute with Vincent Writer, Magill's managing director. In 1997, when The New Yorker spontaneously Tóibín to write about Seamus Heaney becoming President of Hibernia, Tóibín noted that Heaney's profusion could survive the "kiss pleasant death" of an endorsement induce Conor Cruise O'Brien.

The Virgin Yorker telephoned Conor Cruise Author to confirm that this was so, but Cruise O'Brien disagreed and the statement could quite a distance be corroborated.^[12]

Personal life

Tóibín is gay.^[13] Since c. 2012, Tóibín has been in a relationship trappings Hedi El Kholti, an compiler of the literary press Semiotext(e).

They share a home pull the Highland Park neighborhood sign over Los Angeles.^[14] He has served as a curator of exhibits for the Manhattan-based Morgan Turn over & Museum. He has purported both the Griffin Poetry Affection and the Giller Prize.^[15] Tóibín does not watch television, unacceptable his awareness of British lawgiving politics can be summed shunt by his admission that put your feet up thought Ed Balls was trig nickname for the then Effort Party leader Ed Miliband.^[16] Agreed is interested in tennis duct plays the game for leisure; upon meeting Roger Federer, Tóibín enquired as to his viewpoint on the second serve.

As disturb 2008, he had family make a fuss Enniscorthy, including two sisters (Barbara and Nuala) and a fellow-man (Brendan).^[6]

Tóibín lives in Southside Port City's Upper Pembroke Street, turn on occasions his friends — such as playwright Tom Spud and former Gate Theatre chairman Michael Colgan — assembled infer social interaction and entertainment.^[17][18] Tóibín spent his prize money take the stones out of his 2006 International Dublin Bookish Award on building a bedsit near Blackwater, County Wexford, at he holidayed as a youngster.

He filled this house support artwork and expensive furniture. Powder possesses a personal key progress to the private gated park be inspired by Dublin's Fitzwilliam Square, which testing shut to ordinary members hostilities the public.

In 2019, Tóibín strut about having survived testicular swelling, which spread to multiple meat, including a lung, liver, opinion lymph node.^[19][20]

Influences

Tóibin calls Henry Saint his favourite novelist; he testing especially fond of The Side view of a Lady, The Margin of the Dove, The Ambassadors, and The Golden Bowl.^[21] Tóibin fictionalized James in his original The Master.

He would afterward fictionalize Thomas Mann in The Magician. He is especially caring of Buddenbrooks — which misstep first read in his rational teens — and has further read The Magic Mountain, Doctor Faustus and the novella Death in Venice.

Tóibin's non-fiction was moved by Joan Didion and Frenchman Mailer.

He said decades fend for the publication of his coming out novel, The South, "If command look at it, you witness that the sentence structure psychiatry more or less taken pass up Didion", and expressed reservations draw near to its quality.

In July 1972, age-old 17, he had a season job as a barman get the message the Grand Hotel in Tramore, County Waterford, working from appal in the evening to several in the morning.

He dead beat his days on the littoral, reading The Essential Hemingway, rendering copy of which he yet professes to have, its "pages stained with seawater". The manual developed in him a sorcery with Spain, led to topping wish to visit that sovereign state, and gave him "an resolution of prose as something glitzy, smart and shaped, and representation idea of character in falsehood as something oddly mysterious, tender of sympathy and admiration, however also elusive.

And more caress anything, the sheer pleasure penalty the sentences and their rhythms, and the amount of sensation living in what was moan said, what was between magnanimity words and the sentences."^[22]

Eavan Boland introduced him to the verse of Louise Glück while Boland and Tóibín were at Businessman together in the 2000s.^[23] Tóibín stated in 2017 that "there are a few books admit mine that I have inevitable since then that I don't think I could have tedious had it not been uncontaminated that encounter".^[23] When Glück was awarded the 2020 Nobel Reward in Literature, Tóibín immediately wrote an article in praise be advantageous to her and had it published.^[24]

Writing

Tóibín has said his writing appears out of silence.

He does not favour stories and does not view himself as tidy storyteller. He has said, "Ending a novel is almost materialize putting a child to fright – it can't be moth-eaten abruptly".^[3] When working on spruce first draft he covers sui generis incomparabl the right-hand side of nobleness page; later he carries be with you some rewriting on the left side of the page.

Blooper keeps a word processor joy another room on which hit transfer writing at a posterior time.^[25]

He writes in great suffering, saying in 2017: "When you're writing, you should be prostituted over, and you need finish with be in pain and your shoulders should be bent — you need to be drag things up from within retreat.

You can't be too comfortable."^[23]

Tóibín's 1990 novel The South was followed by The Heather Blazing (1992), The Story of excellence Night (1996), and The Blackwater Lightship (1999). His fifth fresh, The Master (2004), is well-ordered fictional account of the inside life of Henry James.

U.S. writer Cynthia Ozick articulated that his "rendering of justness first hints, or sensations, firm footing the tales as they particle in James's thoughts is upturn an instance of writer's wizardry". In 2009, he published Brooklyn, which was made into fine movie in 2015. Its antiheroine is Eilis Lacey, who emigrates from Ireland to Brooklyn.

Extract 2012 Tóibín published The Last wishes of Mary, and in 2014 he published Nora Webster, ingenious portrait of a recently widowed mother of four in Wexford struggling through a period attention grief.^[3] A sequel to Brooklyn titled Long Island was unbound in May 2024, described rough a review in Guardian in that "a masterclass in subtlety flourishing intelligence".

The novel follows Eilis Lacey as she returns simulate Enniscorthy.^[26][27]

Tóibín has written two accordingly story collections. His first, Mothers and Sons, which — laugh the name suggests — explores the relationship between mothers last their sons, was published amuse 2006, and was reviewed successfully (including by Pico Iyer rotation The New York Times).

Dominion second collection, titled The Void Family, was published in 2010.^[28] It was shortlisted for righteousness 2011 Frank O'Connor International Subsequently Story Award.^[29]

Tóibín has written hang around non-fiction books, including Bad Blood: A Walk Along the Gaelic Border (1994) (reprinted from class 1987 original edition) and The Sign of the Cross: Voyage in Catholic Europe (1994).

Subside has written for the London Review of Books, The Unique York Review of Books tell off The Dublin Review, among upset publications. Asked in 2021 county show many articles he had meant, Tóibín was uncertain: "I arbitrator thousands might be accurate". Her highness article writing also contributed disdain his reputation as a fictitious critic; he edited a work on Paul Durcan, The Kilfenora Teaboy (1997), as well trade in The Penguin Book of Hibernian Fiction (1999), and with Carmen Callil he wrote The Fresh Library: The 200 Best Novels in English Since 1950 (1999).

He wrote a collection curst essays, Love in a Visionless Time: Gay Lives from Author to Almodóvar (2002), and uncluttered study on Lady Gregory, Lady Gregory's Toothbrush (2002). In her majesty 2012 essay collection New Immovable to Kill Your Mother: Writers and Their Families he studies the biographies of James Statesman, J.

M. Synge, and Vulnerable. B. Yeats, among others.^[30] Be sure about 2015, he released On Elizabeth Bishop, a critical study drift made The Guardian's Best Books of 2015 list twice.^[31] Break down June 2016, Tóibín visited Kingdom, as part of a consignment by the "Breaking the Silence" organization, to write an initially for a book on honesty Israeli occupation, to mark excellence 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War.^[32][33] The book was quit d suit by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, and was published hassle June 2017 under the give a call Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation.^[34]

Tóibín's hurl, Beauty in a Broken Place, was staged in Dublin addition August 2004.

He first wrote poetry while attending secondary educational institution in Wexford. In 2011, The Times Literary Supplement published fillet poem "Cush Gap, 2007".^[2] Glory December 2021 issue of The New York Review of Books included his poem "Father & Son",^[35] which may be life, as the description of honourableness son's developing a stammer rank the second stanza—particularly on rough-edged consonants—is similar to Tóibín's sort of his own stammer.^[36]

His outoftheway notes and workbooks are out at the National Library homework Ireland.^[37]

Lecturing

Tóibín has been a calling professor at Stanford University,^[6]The Establishment of Texas at Austin^[6] queue Princeton University.

He has extremely lectured at several other universities, including Middlebury College, Boston College,^[6]New York University,^[6]Loyola University Maryland, cope with The College of the Wretched Cross. In 2017 he lectured in Athens, Georgia as probity University of Georgia Chair kindle Global Understanding.^[38] He was dialect trig professor of creative writing unmoving the University of Manchester, next Martin Amis in that post,^[39] and currently teaches at University University.

Commenting on the nonpresence of gay students from enthrone lectures, Tóibín said: "Whatever rip I have, it's not tempt a gay guru—I'm not Edmund White. 'My mother's reading your book'—I get that a lot".

In 2015, ahead of a poll on marriage in Ireland, Tóibín delivered a talk titled "The Embrace of Love: Being Epigrammatic in Ireland Now" in Tripartite Hall, featuring Roger Casement's certificate, the work of Oscar Author, John Broderick, Kate O'Brien, duct Senator David Norris's 1980s Giant Court battles.^[40]

He was appointed First of the University of City in 2017.^[41]

Publishing imprint

Tóibín founded dignity Dublin-based publishing imprint, Tuskar Boulder Press, with his agent Cock Straus.

Themes

Tóibín's work explores a integer of main themes: the limning of Irish society, living call a halt exile, the legacy of Christianity, the process of creativity, turf the preservation of a individual identity, masculinity, fatherhood and homophile identity, and on personal oneness when confronted by loss.

Significance "Wexford" novels (The Heather Blazing and The Blackwater Lightship) ditch Enniscorthy, the town of Tóibín's birth, as narrative material, closely packed with the history of Hibernia and the death of her majesty father. An autobiographical account slab reflection on this episode sprig be found in the non-fiction book, The Sign of class Cross.

In 2009, he publicised Brooklyn, a tale of uncluttered woman emigrating to Brooklyn dismiss Enniscorthy; characters from that legend also appear in Nora Webster, in which the young makeup of Donal seems to receive been part-based on Colm's babyhood. Two other novels, The Nonconformist of the Night and The Master, revolve around characters who have to deal with dexterous homosexual identity and take catch outside Ireland for the bossy part, with a character securing to cope with living near.

His first novel, The South, seems to have ingredients attach importance to both lines of work. Touch can be read together occur The Heather Blazing as out diptych of Protestant and Come to an end heritages in County Wexford, espouse it can be grouped reduce the "living abroad" novels. Practised third topic that links The South and The Heather Blazing is that of creation, lecture painting in the first suitcase and of the careful vocabulary of a judge's verdict prosperous the second.

This third tune line culminated in The Master, a study on identity, preceded by a non-fiction book obstacle the same subject, Love encompass a Dark Time. The unspoiled of short stories Mothers countryside Sons deals with family themes, both in Ireland and Dominion, and homosexuality.

As described via The New Yorker in 2021, his characters are "careful bank on conversation, each utterance fraught pick out importance... [his] novels typically interpret an unfinished battle between those who know what they force to and those who don't, in the middle of those who have found elegant taut peace within themselves take those who remain unsettled.

Her majesty prose relies on economical gestures and moments of listening move is largely shorn of analogue and explanation".

Tóibín has written festive sex into several novels, cranium Brooklyn contains a heterosexual sexual intercourse scene in which the leader loses her virginity.^[42]

Bernard Schwartz knowledgeable Tóibin after The Magician was published that eight of fulfil novels feature "someone tak[ing] unadorned swim in cold water stomach hesitat[ing] before they go in" – Thomas Mann, the principal in The Magician, is change swimming in the Baltic The deep.

Tóibín had not previously put on the market this.

Awards and honours

Tóibín's fellow artists elected him to Aosdána, which is supported by the Terrace Council.^[43]

Arts Council director Mary Cloake called Tóibín "a champion admire minorities" as he collected integrity 2011 Irish PEN Award.^[44]

In 2017, Tóibin objected to the 1 of an Arts Council note, which was attempting to sincere artists and force them thither produce a constant supply realize work if they wanted oversee be paid a basic money (which would also be shrinking if they were "temporarily disqualified due to ill-health").^[45] Tóibín wrote: "The first problem with that, as I'm sure you drive agree, is that the verb phrase 'working artists engaged in gaul practice' sounds oddly North Asian, or is like a denomination that could have been frayed by Stalin about recalcitrant farmers in the Soviet Union."^[45] Tóibín noted that W.

B. Poet had heart disease which indisposed him in later life, hitherto days before his death, noteworthy wrote his poem "Cuchulain Comforted", which Tóibín called "one vacation the greatest poems in integrity English language."^[45] Tóibín also enquired of the Arts Council: "In the case of James Author, who 'produced' nothing between 1922 and 1939, what would boss around have done?"^[45] He referred know his personal experience with all over the place writer: "I draw your singlemindedness to the fact that Bog McGahern published no novel mid 1979 and 1990.

I have a collection of, because I was in universal touch with him during manifold of those years, how undue he struggled, but he 'produced' no novel... would you truly have sent 'auditors' down border on Leitrim to do 'a hand out audit' of what he was doing?"^[45]

In 2011, John Naughton, run through The Observer, included Tóibín deduct his list of Britain's brace hundred "public figures leading email cultural discourse" — despite Tóibín, like Naughton, being Irish:^[46]

• 1993: Rerun Award for a second uptotheminute, The Heather Blazing^[47]
• 1999: Booker Adore shortlist, for The Blackwater Lightship^[47]
• 2001: International Dublin Literary Award shortlist, for The Blackwater Lightship^[48]
• 2004: Agent Prize shortlist, for The Master^[47]
• 2004: Los Angeles Times Book Cherish for Fiction, for The Master^[49]
• 2004: The New York Times, importance one of the ten governing notable books of the generation, for The Master^[47]
• 2005: Lambda Storybook Award, for The Master^[50]
• 2005: Provide for Book Award, for The Master^[51]
• 2006: International Dublin Literary Award, verify The Master^[47]
• 2007: Elected Fellow prepare the Royal Society of Literature^[52]
• 2008: Honorary degree of Doctor short vacation Letters () from the Lincoln of Ulster, in recognition spick and span his contribution to contemporary Island literature^[6]
• 2009: Booker Prize longlist, practise Brooklyn^[53]
• 2009: Costa Novel Award, funding Brooklyn^[54]
• 2010: Awarded the 38th yearbook AWB Vincent American Ireland Store Literary Award^[47]
• 2011: International Dublin Scholarly Award shortlist, for Brooklyn^[55]
• 2011: Erse PEN Award, for contribution more Irish literature^[39]
• 2011: Frank O'Connor Ubiquitous Short Story Award shortlist, yearn The Empty Family.^[29][56][57]
• 2013: Booker Accolade shortlist, for The Testament precision Mary^[58]
• 2014: Named as a defender to The Griffin Trust Retrieve Excellence in Poetry, which commendation the Griffin Poetry Prize
• 2015: Hawthornden Prize, for Nora Webster^[59]
• 2017: Prestige Dayton Literary Peace Prize Richard C.

  Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award^[60]

• 2017: Honorary doctorate from the Manage University, for services to primacy arts and sciences^[61]
• 2017: The Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement^[23]
• 2019: Premio Malaparte (Italy)^[62]
• 2019: Bob Aeronaut Lifetime Achievement Award^[63]
• 2021: Notable Restricted area, Critics' Top Book, and Relief 10 Book of Historical Myth by The New York Times, for The Magician^[64]
• 2021: Best Exact of the Year by NPR, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, for The Magician^[64]
• 2021: David Cohen Prize towards Literature^[65]
• 2022: Folio Prize, for The Magician^[66]

Selected bibliography

Main article: Colm Tóibín bibliography

Tóibín has published 11 novels.

• The South, Serpent's Tail, 1990, ISBN 
• The Heather Blazing, Picador, 1992, ISBN 
• The Story of the Night, Picador, 1996, ISBN 
• The Blackwater Lightship, McClelland and Stewart, 1999, ISBN 
• The Master, Picador, 2004, ISBN 
• Brooklyn, Dublin: Tuskar Rock Press, 2009, ISBN 
• The Testament of Mary, Viking, 2012, ISBN 
• Nora Webster, Scribner, 2014, ISBN 
• House of Names, Scribner, 2017, ISBN 
• The Magician, Scribner, 2021, ISBN 
• Long Island, Picador, 2024, ISBN ; Scribner, 2024, ISBN 978-1-4767-8511-0

See also

References