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Colm Tóibín

File:Colm_toibin_2006.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

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Colm Tóibín

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Also known as Colm Toibin

Irish novelist and writer (born 1955)

Person · Open Library

Born
1955
Works
242

Top works

  • Nora Webster
  • Molloy
  • Migdalor
  • The Sun Also Rises
  • L'épaisseur des âmes

via Open Library + Wikidata

Film & TV

Writing · Enniscorthy, County Wexford, Ireland

Colm Tóibín (/ˈkʌləm toʊˈbiːn/ KUL-əm toh-BEEN, Irish: [ˈkɔl̪ˠəmˠ t̪ˠoːˈbʲiːnʲ]; born 30 May 1955) is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist, critic, playwright and poet. His first novel, The South, was published in 1990. The Blackwater Lightship was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The Master (a fictionalised version of the inner life of Henry James) was also shortlisted…

Known for

  • Palabra de... — Self2026
  • Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius — Self2025
  • Turn Every Page - The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb — Self2022
  • The Capote Tapes — Self2021
  • Jack B. Yeats: The Man Who Painted Ireland — Self2021
  • Anjelica Huston on James Joyce: A Shout in the Street — Self - Writer2017
  • The Meaning of Life — Self2009

via TMDB

Music · MusicBrainz

Type
Person
Gender
Male
Origin
Ireland
Active from
1955

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners
33
Total plays
322

<a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Colm+T%C3%B3ib%C3%ADn">Read more on Last.fm</a>

via Last.fm · Colm Tóibín

Quotes

  • A novelist could probably run a military campaign with some success. They could certainly run a country.
  • If a storyteller came up to me, I'd run away.
  • I was brought up in a house where there was a great deal of silence.
  • I wanted to be a poet as a child and I have a wall in my study dedicated to poetry books, all in alphabetical order, that reminds me daily of my failure.
  • The only time I've ever learned anything from a review was when John Lanchester wrote a piece in the Guardian about my second novel, The Heather Blazing. He said that, together with the previous novel, it represented a diptych about the aftermath of Irish independence. I simply hadn't known that – and I loved the grandeur of the word "diptych". I went around quite snooty for a few days, thinking: "I wrote a diptych."
  • I was the worst barman who ever lived. My pints of Guinness were unholy.

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Key facts

Succeeded by
Wendy Beetlestone
Born
( 1955-05-30 ) 30 May 1955 (age 71) , Enniscorthy , County Wexford , Ireland
Alma mater
UCD
Occupation
Journalist essayist novelist short story writer
Website
colmtoibin .com
Language
English ( Hiberno-English )
Genre
Essay, Novel, Short Story, Play, Poem
Subject
Irish society, living abroad, creativity, personal identity
Notable works
The Heather Blazing The Story of the Night The Blackwater Lightship The Master The Testament of Mary Brooklyn Nora Webster The Magician
Notable awards
Encore Award , 1993 , Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction , 2004 , International Dublin Literary Award , 2006 , Irish PEN Award , 2011 , Hawthornden Prize , 2015 , Lifetime Achievement Award in Irish Literature , 2019 , David Cohen Prize , 2021 , Folio Prize , 2022

via Wikipedia infobox

~23 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Colm Tóibín (/ˈkʌləm toʊˈbiːn/ KUL-əm toh-BEEN, Irish: [ˈkɔl̪ˠəmˠ t̪ˠoːˈbʲiːnʲ]; born 30 May 1955) is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist, critic, playwright and poet.

His first novel, The South, was published in 1990. The Blackwater Lightship was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The Master (a fictionalised version of the inner life of Henry James) was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the 2006 International Dublin Literary Award, securing for Toíbín a bounty of thousands of euro as it is one of the richest literary awards in the world. Nora Webster won the Hawthornden Prize, whilst The Magician (a fictionalised version of the life of Thomas Mann) won the Folio Prize. His fellow artists elected him to Aosdána, and he won the biennial David Cohen Prize in 2021.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Colm Tóibín” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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