Colm Toibin interview
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- Duration: 2:13
- Published: 20 May 2010
- Uploaded: 20 Apr 2011
- Author: NewsOnABC
Irish novelist Colm Toibin speaks out on immigration, the Catholic church and homosexuality at the Sydney Writers Festival.
Colm Tóibín
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Carmen Callil
Carmen Thérèse Callil (born 15 July 1938) is a publisher, writer and critic. She founded Virago Press in 1973.
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Enniscorthy
Enniscorthy () is the second largest town in County Wexford, Ireland. The population of the town and environs is 9538. The Placenames Database of Ireland sheds no light on the origins of the town's name. It may refer either to the "Island of Corthaidh" or the "Island of Rocks". With a history going back to 465 Enniscorthy is one of the longest continuously-occupied sites in Ireland. The cathedral of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ferns is sited in the town.
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Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American author and journalist. His distinctive writing style, characterized by economy and understatement, influenced 20th-century fiction, as did his life of adventure and public image. He produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. Hemingway's fiction was successful because the characters he presented exhibited authenticity that resonated with his audience. Many of his works are classics of American literature. He published seven novels, six short story collections, and two non-fiction works during his lifetime; a further three novels, four collections of short stories, and three non-fiction works were published .
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Henry James
Henry James, OM ( – ) was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James.
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Irish people
The Irish people (, na hÉireannaigh, na Gaedhil) are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years (according to archaeological studies, see Prehistoric Ireland), with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded have legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolgs, Tuatha Dé Danann and the Milesians the last group supposedly representing the "pure" Gaelic ancestry, and still serving as a term for the Irish race today. The main groups that interacted with the Irish in the Middle Ages include the Scottish people and the Vikings, with the Icelanders especially having some Irish descent. The Anglo-Norman invasion of the High Middle Ages, the English plantations and the subsequent English rule of the country introduced the Normans and Flemish into Ireland. Welsh, Picts, Bretons, and small parties of Gauls and even Anglo-Saxons are known in Ireland from much earlier times.
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Lady Gregory
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Martin Amis
Martin Louis Amis (born 25 August 1949) is a British novelist, the author of some of Britain's best-known modern literature, including Money (1984) and London Fields (1989). He is currently Professor of Creative Writing at the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester. The Times named him in 2008 as one of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945.
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Pico Iyer
Pico Iyer (born 1957) is a British-born essayist and novelist. He is the author of numerous books on travel including Video Night in Kathmandu. His shorter pieces have appeared in ''Time, Harper's, NYRB'' and many other publications.
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Ramona Koval
Ramona Koval (born 1954, Melbourne) is an Australian broadcaster, writer and journalist.
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Robert P. Harrison
Robert P. Harrison is the Rosina Pierotti Chair of Italian Literature at Stanford University. He was born in Izmir, Turkey, and raised in Rome. He is the host of the podcast Entitled Opinions (On Life and Literature). He plays lead guitar for the cerebral rock band Glass Wave. Professor Harrison received his doctorate in romance studies from Cornell University in 1984, with a dissertation on Dante's Vita Nuova. In 1985 he accepted a visiting assistant professorship in the Department of French and Italian at Stanford. In 1986 he joined the faculty as an assistant professor. He was granted tenure in 1992 and was promoted to full professor in 1995. In 1997 Stanford offered him the Rosina Pierotti Chair. In 2002, he was named chair of the Department of French and Italian. Professor Harrison's first book, The Body of Beatrice, was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 1988. A revised and elaborated version of his dissertation, it deals with medieval Italian lyric poetry, with special emphasis on Dante's early work La Vita Nuova. The Body of Beatrice was translated into Japanese in 1994. Over the next few years Professor Harrison worked on his next book, Forests: The Shadow of Civilization, which appeared in 1992 with University of Chicago Press. This book deals with the multiple and complex ways in which the Western imagination has symbolized, represented, and conceived of forests, primarily in literature, religion, and mythology. It offers a select history that begins in antiquity and ends in our own time. Forests appeared simultaneously in English, French, Italian, and German. It subsequently appeared in Japanese and Korean as well. In 1994 his book Rome, la Pluie: A Quoi Bon Littérature? appeared in France, Italy, and Germany. This book is written in the form of dialogues between two characters and deals with various topics such as art restoration, the vocation of literature, and the place of the dead in contemporary society. Professor Harrison's next book, The Dominion of the Dead, published in 2003 by University of Chicago Press, deals with the relations the living maintain with the dead in diverse secular realms. This book was translated into German, French and Italian. Professor Harrison's most recent book is Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition, which appeared in 2008 with the University of Chicago Press, and in French with Le Pommier. In 2005 Harrison started a literary talk show on KZSU radio called "Entitled Opinions." The show features hour long conversation with a variety of scholars, writers, and scientists.
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Vincent Browne
Vincent Browne (17 July 1944) is an Irish print and broadcast journalist. He is a columnist with The Irish Times and The Sunday Business Post and a part time barrister.
http://wn.com/Vincent_Browne
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Barcelona
Barcelona (Catalan , Spanish ) is the capital and the most populous city of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia and the second largest city in Spain, after Madrid, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Barcelona extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of over 4,200,000 on an area of , it is the sixth-most populous urban area in the European Union after Paris, London, Ruhr area, Madrid and Milan. About 5 million people live in the Barcelona metropolitan area. It is also Europe's largest metropolis on the Mediterranean coast. The main part of a union of adjacent cities and municipalities named Àrea Metropolitana de Barcelona (AMB) with a population of 3,186,461 in an area of 636 km² (density 5.010 hab/km²). It is located on the Mediterranean coast between the mouths of the rivers Llobregat and Besòs and is bounded to the west by the Serra de Collserola ridge ().
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Brooklyn
Brooklyn is New York City's most populous borough with approximately 2.5 million residents, and second largest in area.
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Catalonia
Catalonia ( ; , , ) is one of the Kingdom of Spain's seventeen autonomous communities, the administrative divisions that represent the country's historical nationalities and regions. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida and Tarragona. Its capital city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an official population of 7,504,881. It borders France and Andorra to the north, Aragon to the west, the Valencian Community to the south, and the Mediterranean Sea to the east (580 km coastline). The official languages are Spanish, Catalan and Aranese.
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County Wexford
County Wexford () is one of the twenty-six counties of the Republic of Ireland and one of the thirty-two counties of Ireland. It is located in the province of Leinster. It was named after the town of Wexford (which derives from the Old Norse name Veisafjǫrðr or Waesfjord). In pre-Norman times it was part of the Kingdom of Uí Cheinnsealaig, whose capital was at Ferns. The population of the county is 131,749 according to the 2006 census. Wexford is the 13th largest of Ireland’s 32 counties in area and 16th largest in terms of population. It is the largest of Leinster’s 12 counties in size and fourth largest in terms of population.
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Enniscorthy
Enniscorthy () is the second largest town in County Wexford, Ireland. The population of the town and environs is 9538. The Placenames Database of Ireland sheds no light on the origins of the town's name. It may refer either to the "Island of Corthaidh" or the "Island of Rocks". With a history going back to 465 Enniscorthy is one of the longest continuously-occupied sites in Ireland. The cathedral of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ferns is sited in the town.
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Frongoch
The village of Frongoch is located in Gwynedd, Wales. It lies close to the market town of Bala, on the A4212 road in north Wales.
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Ireland
Ireland (,; , ; Ulster Scots: Airlann) is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the northwest of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of Ireland is Great Britain, separated from it by the Irish Sea. The island is divided between the Republic of Ireland, which covers just under five-sixths of the island, and Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom, which covers the remainder and is located in the northeast of the island. The population of Ireland is approximately 6.2 million people. Just under 4.5 million live in the Republic of Ireland and just under 1.8 million live in Northern Ireland.
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New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan. Founded in 1831, NYU is the largest private, nonprofit institution of higher education in the United States.
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Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution.
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Republic of Ireland
Ireland (, , , ), described as the Republic of Ireland (), is a state in northwest Europe with a population of almost 4.5 million people. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional republic occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of Ireland, which was partitioned into two jurisdictions in 1921. It is bordered to the northeast by Northern Ireland, which is a part of the United Kingdom, and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the Irish Sea to the east, St George's Channel to the southeast, and the Celtic Sea to the south.
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Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university located in Stanford, California, United States. The university is located on an campus in northwestern Santa Clara Valley approximately southeast of San Francisco and approximately northwest of San Jose.
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Wales
Wales ( ; pronounced ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has an estimated population of three million and is officially bilingual with the Welsh and English languages having equal status. The Welsh language is an important element of Welsh culture. Its decline has reversed over recent years, with Welsh speakers estimated to be around 20% of the population of Wales.
http://wn.com/Wales
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- Booker Prize
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- Enniscorthy
- Entitled Opinions
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- Wales
Colm Toibin
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:42
- Published: 19 Nov 2007
- Uploaded: 12 Aug 2011
- Author: poetryireland
Colm Toibin reading at the Gate Theatre in Dublin at a celebraton of Thomas Kinsella's lifes work.
Colm Toibin in conversation. At Sydney Writers' Festival 2010
- http://wn.com/Colm_Toibin_in_conversation_At_Sydney_Writers'_Festival_2010
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This is an excerpt of author Colm Toibin's appearance at the Sydney Writers' Festival, hosted by Caroline Baum. For the full version of this video, go to SlowTV - www.slowtv.com.au
Colm Toibin at the NYS Writers Institute in 2001
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- Duration: 2:03
- Published: 09 Apr 2009
- Uploaded: 27 Aug 2010
- Author: NYSWritersInstitute
An excerpt from an interview with Colm Toibin who appeared at the New York State Writers Institute in 2001.
Colm Toibin - LIVE Shorts
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- Duration: 3:52
- Published: 16 Mar 2011
- Uploaded: 18 Jul 2011
- Author: NewYorkPublicLibrary
www.nypl.org Colm Toibin in conversation with Paul Holdengräber LIVE from the NYPL on February 3, 2011. Director and Editor: Jared Keane Feldman Camera Operation: Jared Keane Feldman, Preston Hart, Anthony Audi Lighting & Sound: Park Boulevard Productions Music: "An Die Musik", Artist -- Victoria De Los Angeles, Composer -- Franz Schubert Live production team -- Producer: Meg Stemmler Director: Paul Holdengräber Office Coordinator: Farah Fields Intern Support: Anthony Audi, Sara Schwartz, Annie Moret
Colm Toibin on Campus
Author Colm Toibin visits ECU.
Colm Tóibín Interview for Warwick TV (Part 1 of 2)
In an exclusive interview for Warwick TV, Yaena Kwon talked to the the Irish author Colm Tóibín about his latest novel "Brooklyn" and his personal experiences. Follow this link for the shorter version of the interview: www.youtube.com
Colm Tóibín: Reflections on Austen
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- Duration: 6:39
- Published: 27 Jan 2010
- Uploaded: 27 Aug 2010
- Author: morganlibrary
Colm Tóibín describes the relationship between his latest novel Brooklyn and Austen's Pride and Prejudice.
Colm Toibin interview
Irish novelist Colm Toibin speaks out on immigration, the Catholic church and homosexuality at the Sydney Writers Festival.
Colm Toibin Q&A; April 7, 2011 (for Ploughshares) with Chris Castellani
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Colm Toibin in a Q&A conducted by Chris Castellani (author of "The Saint of Lost Things"). Colm Toibin, author of "The Empty Family" and "Brooklyn" visited Emerson College in Boston, in an event hosted by Ploughshares Literary Magazine. Toibin guest-edited the Spring 2011 issue of Ploughshares. Pshares.org
Colm Toibin and Thomas Kinsella.mp4
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- Duration: 2:57
- Published: 04 May 2010
- Uploaded: 11 Dec 2010
- Author: EditSweetsIreland
Colm Toibin and Thomas Kinsella talk about Kinsella's poems that are based in Wexford around Enniscorthy. Produced and directed by AnneMarie O'Callaghan Edited by Maebh Keary RTE Arts Lives 2009
Colm Tóibín Warwick TV (special feature)
In an exclusive interview for Warwick TV, Yaena Kwon talked to the the Irish author Colm Tóibín about his latest novel "Brooklyn" and his personal experiences. Follow this link for the full version of the interview: www.youtube.com
Colm Toibin - A Sense Of The Noughties
A Sense Of The Noughties : Vincent Murphy/Morning Ireland has edited a collection of radio essays, poetry and music looking back over Ireland in the last decade. This is a short essay from Colm Toibin.
Colm Tóibín: Readings From Around the Globe
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- Duration: 10:44
- Published: 26 Aug 2009
- Uploaded: 14 Dec 2010
- Author: PENamericancenter
Join PEN World Voices for this star-studded around the globe adventure—featuring Bernardo Atxaga (Spain), Petina Gappah (Zimbabwe), Mariken Jongman (Netherlands), Michael Ondaatje (Sri Lanka/Canada), Daniel Sada (Mexico), Hwang Sok-Yong (Korea), Bernard Comment (France), and Colm Tóibín (Ireland). Come on a whirlwind tour of the best in contemporary literature—no passports required! Cosponsored by the 92nd Street Y Unterberg Poetry Center www.pen.org
Colm Toibin: Mothers and Sons
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- Duration: 5:20
- Published: 30 Jul 2009
- Uploaded: 02 May 2011
- Author: SimonSchusterVideos
From the author of "The Master", a moving novel about a young immigrant in 1950s Brooklyn torn between her Irish roots and the man who wins her heart. Get more on Colm Toibin at SimonandSchuster.com: authors.simonandschuster.com
COLM TOIBIN: The Empty Family, A converation with Paul Holdengraber
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 82:25
- Published: 01 Mar 2011
- Uploaded: 23 Apr 2011
- Author: LIVEfromtheNYPL
- http://wn.com/COLM_TOIBIN_The_Empty_Family,_A_converation_with_Paul_Holdengraber
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www.nypl.org/live Colm Tóibín's new collection of short stories, The Empty Family, demonstrates a profound understanding of human fragility and resilience -- and the price we pay for both. In "Two Women," a brief encounter reminds a formidable woman of her long-lost lover. In "Silence," Tóibín revisits one of his favorite subjects, Henry James, who appears in this story at the same table as Lady Gregory. In "The Street," Tóibín recounts a secret gay love affair between two Pakistani workers in Spain -- both lonely in their adopted country, and both longing for a human connection far from home.
Colm Toibin Discusses His Role As Guest Editor of Ploughshares
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- Duration: 2:08
- Published: 09 May 2011
- Uploaded: 09 May 2011
- Author: EmersonCollege
Colm Toibin reads from Brooklyn for the Wheeler Centre
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- Duration: 4:58
- Published: 03 Dec 2010
- Uploaded: 24 Jul 2011
- Author: WheelerCentre
- http://wn.com/Colm_Toibin_reads_from_Brooklyn_for_the_Wheeler_Centre
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Full video here: wheelercentre.com The Irish novelist got a strange call about a traditional song that made him think about how music can travel. Here he reads (and sings) from Brooklyn.
Audiobook: Brooklyn: A Novel by Colm Toibin
Buy full audiobook: www.qksrv.net List of award-winning books/audiobook: awardwinningaudiobooks.weebly.com It is Enniscorthy in the southeast of Ireland in the early 1950s. Eilis Lacey is one among many of her generation who cannot find work at home. Thus when a job is offered in America, it is clear to everyone that she must go. Eilis heads for unfamiliar Brooklyn to a crowded boarding house. Slowly, the pain of parting is buried beneath the rhythms of her new life - until she begins to realize that she has found a sort of happiness. As she falls in love, news comes from home that forces her back to Ireland, where she finds new possibilities that conflict deeply with the life she has left behind in Brooklyn.
Colm Toibin at the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival 2010
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Colm Tóibín is one of Ireland's most well-known writers. He has written six novels including The South (1990), The Heather Blazing (1992), The Story of the Night (1996), The Blackwater Lightship (1999) which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, The Master (2004), for which he won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2006, and his latest novel Brooklyn (2009), winner of the 2009 Costa Book of the Year. Produced for bookTV.co.nz by CLIP Video, http
colm toibin lit Fest invite
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- Duration: 0:28
- Published: 04 Jun 2011
- Uploaded: 04 Jun 2011
- Author: gippersdad1
Irish author Colm Toibin (ABC Radio National interview)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 10:00
- Published: 21 May 2010
- Uploaded: 27 Aug 2010
- Author: abcradionational
The Sydney Writers' Festival is on and it's attracting some of the world's best to our shores. Included among them is Colm Toibin. One of Ireland's greatest living writers and one of the main international authors gracing the festival program, Colm lives in New York where he teaches creative writing at Princeton. He is also a journalist and literary critic. Colm has won numerous awards, has been twice short-listed for the Man Booker Prize and in January this year won the Costa Novel Award for his latest bestseller, Brooklyn.
Steve Bertrand on Books: Colm Toibin on seeing his book on the shelf
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- Duration: 0:37
- Published: 02 Aug 2011
- Uploaded: 02 Aug 2011
- Author: BlackDogRadio
- http://wn.com/Steve_Bertrand_on_Books_Colm_Toibin_on_seeing_his_book_on_the_shelf
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See the full interview at: www.facebook.com "In The Empty Family, Toibin proves once again that his mastery of language is matched only by his acute understanding of human longing." ~ Lynette Mong
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RELATED LINKS
- ABC Radio National
- Aosdána
- Barcelona
- Boarding school
- Booker Prize
- Boston College
- Brooklyn
- Brooklyn (novel)
- Carmen Callil
- Catalonia
- Catholic
- coming out
- Costa Book Awards
- County Wexford
- diptych
- Easter Rising
- Encore Award
- Enniscorthy
- Entitled Opinions
- Ernest Hemingway
- essayist
- Fianna Fáil
- Frongoch
- Henry James
- homosexual
- Ireland
- Irish people
- journalist
- Lady Gregory
- lecturer
- Los Angeles Times
- Love in A Dark Time
- Magill Magazine
- Martin Amis
- Mothers and Sons
- New York University
- Novelist
- Paul Durcan
- Pico Iyer
- playwright
- poet
- Princeton University
- Protestant
- Ramona Koval
- Republic of Ireland
- Robert P. Harrison
- sexual identity
- short story writer
- Stanford University
- Stonewall Book Award
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- The New York Times
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The Empty Family, By Colm Tóibín
03 Jul 2011
The Independent
This collection of short stories is about the pain of regrets that almost always involve a sense of a home lost, evoked either through a particular person or a place. In "Silence", a fragment from Henry...
The Independent
Where are you now and what can you see? I am in Wexford in the south-east of Ireland. I can see the grass in front of the house being blown around in the wind, and then the sea which is calm today. The sun comes and goes; in the distance there is a ship going from Rosslare to Fishguard. What are you...
The Guardian
As Amis leaves for New York, Tóibín installed as professor of creative writing at the University of Manchester Colm Tóibín: Amis handover. Photograph: Alicia Canter...
In 'The Empty Family,' Colm Tóibín's penetrating eye sees all: straight, gay, past, present
16 Jan 2011
Seattle Times
'The Empty Family' by Colm Tóibín Scribner, 275 pp., $24 In his 2007 collection, "Mothers and Sons," Irish writer Colm Tóibín ("The Master," "The Blackwater Lightship") showed himself to be an emerging master of the short-story form. In his new gathering of tales, "The Empty Family," that mastery is...
The Guardian
Colm Tóibín delights in the hidden landscapes and hidden lives revealed in Eugene McCabe's Music at Annahullian For more podcasts, including Philip Pullman reading Chekhov and William Boyd reading JG Ballard, visit the Guardian short stories podcast page. To nominate your own favourite short story,...
A life in books: Colm Tóibín
23 Oct 2010
The Guardian
'You just have to go wherever things take you. I'm not sure you can take everyone with you, but you should be prepared to try' Colm Tóibín talks to Susanna Rustin...
Once upon a life: Colm Tóibín
10 Oct 2010
The Observer
In the series of interviews which David Sylvester conducted with Francis Bacon there is a great deal of talk about chance. While Bacon was a gambler and enjoyed roulette, as a painter he was deeply deliberate. In one way he left nothing in his work to chance, but he was acutely conscious...
The Empty Family by Colm Tóibín – Review
09 Oct 2010
The Guardian
Hermione Lee finds Colm Tóibín reaching beyond his alienated narrators...
The Empty Family by Colm Tóibín
03 Oct 2010
The Observer
Colm Tóibín's most recent novel, Brooklyn, told the story of a young woman who leaves a small town in Ireland in the 1950s for the uncertainties of a new life in America. When a death in the family summons her back to Enniscorthy, she has to make an apparently impossible choice between two places,...
Colm Tóibín
| Name | Colm Tóibín |
|---|---|
| Caption | Colm Tóibín at the 2006 Texas Book Festival. |
| Birthdate | May 30, 1955 |
| Birthplace | Enniscorthy, County Wexford, Ireland |
| Nationality | Irish |
| Influences | Ernest Hemingway, Henry James |
| Education | B.A., (Hon) D.Litt. |
| Alma mater | University College Dublin |
| Occupation | Novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist, playwright, lecturer, poet |
| Notableworks | The Heather Blazing, The Story of the Night, The Blackwater Lightship, The Master, Brooklyn |
| Website | http://www.colmtoibin.com |
Early life
Colm Tóibín was born in 1955 in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, in the southeast of Ireland. He was the second youngest of five children. His grandfather, Patrick Tobin, was a member of the IRA, as was his grand-uncle Michael Tobin. Patrick Tobin took part in the 1916 Rebellion in Enniscorthy and was subsequently interned in Frongoch in Wales. Colm Tóibín's father was a teacher who was involved in the Fianna Fáil party in Enniscorthy. He received his secondary education at St Peter's College, Wexford, where he was a boarder between 1970 and 1972. He later spoke of finding some of the priests attractive. He progressed to University College Dublin, graduating in 1975. Immediately after graduation, he left for Barcelona. Tóibín's first novel, 1990's The South, was partly inspired by his time in Barcelona; as was, more directly, his non-fiction Homage to Barcelona (1990). Having returned to Ireland in 1978, he began to study for a masters degree. However, he did not submit his thesis and left academia, at least partly, for a career in journalism.
Career
The early 1980s were an especially bright period in Irish journalism, and the heyday for the monthly news magazine Magill. Tóibín became the magazine's editor in 1982, and remained in the position until 1985. He left due to ongoing differences with the managing director Vincent Browne.The Heather Blazing (1992), his second novel, was followed by The Story of the Night (1996) and The Blackwater Lightship (1999). His fifth novel, The Master (2004), is a fictional account of portions in the life of author Henry James. He is the author of other non-fiction books: (1994), (reprinted from the 1987 original edition) and The Sign of the Cross: Travels in Catholic Europe (1994).
He has written a play that was staged in Dublin in August 2004, Beauty in a Broken Place. He has continued to work as a journalist, both in Ireland and abroad, writing for the London Review of Books among others. He has also achieved a reputation as a literary critic: he has edited a book on Paul Durcan, The Kilfenora Teaboy (1997); The Penguin Book of Irish Fiction (1999); and has written The Modern Library: The 200 Best Novels in English since 1950 (1999), with Carmen Callil; a collection of essays, Love in A Dark Time: Gay lives from Wilde to Almodóvar (2002); and a study on Lady Gregory, Lady Gregory's Toothbrush (2002).
Tóibín is a member of Aosdána and has been visiting professor at Stanford University, The University of Texas at Austin and Princeton University. He has also lectured at several other universities, including Boston College, New York University, Loyola University Maryland, and The College of the Holy Cross. In 2008, he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters (DLitt) at the University of Ulster in recognition of his contribution to contemporary Irish Literature. In January 2010, he was named the winner of the Costa Novel Award for his novel Brooklyn.
Tóibín has written two short story collections. His first Mothers and Sons which, as the name suggests, explores the relationship between mothers and their sons, was published in 2006 and was reviewed favourably (including by Pico Iyer in The New York Times). His second, broader collection The Empty Family was published in 2010.
The University of Manchester recently named Tóibín as its new professor of creative writing, succeeding Martin Amis.
Themes
Tóibín's work explores several main lines: the depiction of Irish society, living abroad, the process of creativity and the preservation of a personal identity, focusing especially on homosexual identities—Tóibín is openly gay—but also on identity in front of loss. The "Wexford" novels, The Heather Blazing and The Blackwater Lightship, use the town of Enniscorthy where he was born as narrative material, together with the history of Ireland and the death of his father. An autobiographical account and reflection on this episode can be found in the non-fiction book, The Sign of the Cross. In 2009 he published Brooklyn, a tale of a woman emigrating to Brooklyn from Enniscorthy.Two other novels, The Story of the Night and The Master revolve around characters who have to deal with a homosexual identity and take place outside Ireland for the most part, with a character having to cope with living abroad. His first novel, The South, seems to have ingredients of both lines of work. It can be read together with The Heather Blazing as a diptych of Protestant and Catholic heritages in County Wexford, or it can be grouped with the "living abroad" novels. A third topic that link The South and The Heather Blazing is that of creation. Of painting in the first case and of the careful wording of a judge's verdict in the second. This third thematic line culminated in The Master, a study on identity, precedeed by a non-fiction book in the same subject, Love in a Dark Time. The book of short stories "Mothers and Sons" deal with family themes, both in Ireland and Catalonia, and homosexuality.
Tóibín has written about gay sex in several novels, though Brooklyn contains a heterosexual sex scene in which the heroine loses her virginity.
Awards
The Heather Blazing won the 1993 Encore Award for a second novel. The Blackwater Lightship was shortlisted for the 1999 Booker Prize and the 2001 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
Works
(First English edition; Australian edition published 2001) )
References
Sources
Further reading
External links
Category:1955 births Category:Living people Category:People from Enniscorthy Category:People from County Wexford Category:Aosdána members Category:Irish dramatists and playwrights Category:Irish essayists Category:Irish journalists Category:Irish novelists Category:Irish poets Category:Irish short story writers Category:Gay writers Category:LGBT journalists Category:LGBT people from Ireland Category:Lambda Literary Award winners Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature
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