Colm Tóibín
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Colm Tóibín (Irish pronunciation: [ˈkɔl̪ˠəmˠ t̪ˠoːˈbʲiːnʲ]) (born 1955 in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, Ireland) is an Irish novelist and critic.
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[edit] Life
Colm Tóibín was born in Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford in the southeast of Ireland in 1955. He was the second youngest of five children. His grandfather Patrick Tobin was a member of the Irish Republican Army, as was his grand-uncle Michael Tobin. Patrick Tobin took part in the 1916 Rebellion in Enniscorthy and was subsequently interned in Frongach in Wales. Colm Toibin's father was a teacher who was involved in the Fianna Fáil party in Enniscorthy.
Tóibín received his secondary education at St Peter's College, Wexford, where he was a boarder between 1970 and 1972. He progressed to University College Dublin, and graduated in 1975. Immediately after graduation, he left for Barcelona. Tóibín's first novel, 1990's The South, was partly inspired by his time in the Spanish city; as was, more directly, his non-fiction Homage to Barcelona (1990). Having returned to Ireland in 1978, he began to study for a Masters. However he did not submit his thesis, and left academia, at least partly, for a career in journalism. 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.
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. In 2006 his first collection of short stories was published as Mothers and Sons, and was reviewed favourably (including by Pico Iyer in The New York Times). He is the author of other non-fiction books: Bad Blood: A Walk Along the Irish Border (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. 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 and The University of Texas at Austin. He has also lectured at several other universities, including Boston College and New York University. 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.
[edit] 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[1] — 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 when Colm was very young. An autobiographical account and reflection on this episode can be found in the non-fiction book, The Sign of the Cross.
Living abroad novels: 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 ideas of 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 study of identity and creativity that is The Master, precedeed by a non-fiction book in the same subject, Love in A Dark Time.
[edit] 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.
- The Master won the 2006 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, was shortlisted for the 2004 Booker Prize, won the Los Angeles Times Novel of the Year, the Stonewall Book Award and the Lambda Literary Award, and was listed by The New York Times as one of the ten most notable books of 2004.
[edit] References
- ^ Kaplan, James (2004-06-06). A Subtle Play of Relations Reveals Henry James in Full. The Observer. Retrieved on 2007-08-17.
- Ryan, Ray. Ireland and Scotland: Literature and Culture, State and Nation, 1966-2000. Oxford University Press, 2002.
- Interview with Colm Toibin
