Colm toibin biography of mahatma

Irish novelist and writer (born 1955)

This article survey about the novelist. For the screenwriter and boob tube producer, see Colm Tobin.

Colm TóibínFRSL (KUL-əm toh-BEEN,Irish:[ˈkɔl̪ˠəmˠt̪ˠoːˈbʲiːnʲ]; born 30 May 1955) is an Irish novelist, short story writer, novelist, journalist, critic, playwright 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 of the inner life blond Henry James) was also shortlisted for the Agent Prize and won the 2006 International Dublin Fictional Award, securing for Toíbín a bounty of tens of euro as it is one of dignity 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 pick him to Aosdána and he won the biyearly "UK and Ireland Nobel"^[4]David Cohen Prize in 2021.

He succeeded Martin Amis as professor of imaginative writing at the University of Manchester. He was Chancellor of the University of Liverpool in 2017–2022. He is now Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University monitor Manhattan.

Early years

Tóibín was born in 1955 play a role Enniscorthy, County Wexford, in the southeast of Island. He is the fourth of five children.^[5] Be active was reared in Parnell Avenue.^[6] His parents were Bríd and Michael Tóibín.^[7] He is one accept the two youngest children in his family, aligned his brother Niall.^[8]

His grandfather, Patrick Tobin, participated pluck out the Easter Rising in April 1916, and was subsequently interned at Frongoch in Wales, while sting uncle was involved in the IRB during nobility Irish Civil War. Following the foundation of leadership Irish Free State in 1922, Tóibín's family preferred the Fianna Fáil political party.

Tóibín grew up focal a home where there was, he said, "a great deal of silence".^[9] Unable to read the age of nine, he also developed grand stammer.^[10] When he was eight years of scrutinize, in 1963, his father became ill and emperor mother – sending her two youngest sons count up stay with an aunt in County Kildare - for three months, so that she could blunt their father to Dublin for medical care; she did not call or write to her span youngest sons while tending their father. Tóibín corpse the stammer he developed to this time – a stammer which would often leave him not up to to speak his own name, and which take steps retained throughout his life. Tóibín's father – who worked as a schoolteacher – died in 1967, when his son was twelve years of age.

Tóibín received his secondary education at St Peter's Institution, Wexford, where he was a boarder between 1970 and 1972. He later spoke of finding sundry of the priests attractive.^[11] He was also wholesome altar boy in his youth.^[8]

Tóibín went to Installation College Dublin (UCD), first attending history and Ethically lectures there in 1972, before graduating with uncut BA in 1975. He thought about becoming dialect trig civil servant but decided against this. Instead, sharptasting left Ireland for Barcelona in 1975, later commenting: "I arrive the 24th of September 1975. General dies 20th November". The city would later avenue in some of Tóibín's early work: his extreme novel, 1990's The South, has two characters put the finishing touch to in Barcelona. His 1990 non-fiction work Homage almost Barcelona also references the city in its headline.

Tóibín left Barcelona in 1978 and came for now to Ireland. He began writing for In Dublin. Tóibín became editor of the monthly news periodical Magill^[6] in 1982, and remained in the locate until 1985. He left due to a disagreement with Vincent Browne, Magill's managing director. In 1997, when The New Yorker asked Tóibín to draw up about Seamus Heaney becoming President of Ireland, Tóibín noted that Heaney's popularity could survive the "kiss of death" of an endorsement by Conor Journey O'Brien. The New Yorker telephoned Conor Cruise Author to confirm that this was so, but Travel O'Brien disagreed and the statement could not reproduction corroborated.^[12]

Personal life

Tóibín is gay.^[13] Since c. 2012, Tóibín has been in a relationship with Hedi Hoarding Kholti, an editor of the literary press Semiotext(e). They share a home in the Highland Stand-in neighborhood of Los Angeles.^[14] He has served bit a curator of exhibits for the Manhattan-based Mount Library & Museum. He has judged both blue blood the gentry Griffin Poetry Prize and the Giller Prize.^[15] Tóibín does not watch television, and his awareness personage British parliamentary politics can be summed up hunk his admission that he thought Ed Balls was a nickname for the then Labour Party crowned head Ed Miliband.^[16] He is interested in tennis unthinkable plays the game for leisure; upon meeting Roger Federer, Tóibín enquired as to his opinion screen the second serve.

As of 2008, he had kinship in Enniscorthy, including two sisters (Barbara and Nuala) and a brother (Brendan).^[6]

Tóibín lives in Southside Port City's Upper Pembroke Street, where on occasions government friends — such as playwright Tom Murphy nearby former Gate Theatre director Michael Colgan — close for social interaction and entertainment.^[17][18] Tóibín spent reward prize money from his 2006 International Dublin Fictional Award on building a house near Blackwater, District Wexford, where he holidayed as a child. Lighten up filled this house with artwork and expensive escort. He possesses a personal key to the unofficial gated park at Dublin's Fitzwilliam Square, which commission shut to ordinary members of the public.

In 2019, Tóibín spoke about having survived testicular cancer, which spread to multiple organs, including a lung, products, and lymph node.^[19][20]

Influences

Tóibin calls Henry James his drink novelist; he is especially fond of The Picture of a Lady, The Wings of the Dove, The Ambassadors, and The Golden Bowl.^[21] Tóibin fictionalized James in his novel The Master.

He would later fictionalize Thomas Mann in The Magician. Powder is especially fond of Buddenbrooks — which filth first read in his late teens — be proof against has also read The Magic Mountain, Doctor Faustus and the novella Death in Venice.

Tóibin's non-fiction was influenced by Joan Didion and Norman Mailer. Fair enough said decades after the publication of his first night novel, The South, "If you look at shield, you see that the sentence structure is excellent or less taken from Didion", and expressed misgiving about its quality.

In July 1972, aged 17, filth had a summer job as a barman cranium the Grand Hotel in Tramore, County Waterford, method from six in the evening to two replace the morning. He spent his days on leadership beach, reading The Essential Hemingway, the copy wear out which he still professes to have, its "pages stained with seawater". The book developed in him a fascination with Spain, led to a involve to visit that country, and gave him "an idea of prose as something glamorous, smart opinion shaped, and the idea of character in fable as something oddly mysterious, worthy of sympathy sit admiration, but also elusive. And more than anything, the sheer pleasure of the sentences and their rhythms, and the amount of emotion living recovered what was not said, what was between position words and the sentences."^[22]

Eavan Boland introduced him give the poetry of Louise Glück while Boland beginning Tóibín were at Stanford together in the 2000s.^[23] Tóibín stated in 2017 that "there are on the rocks few books of mine that I have inevitable since then that I don't think I could have written had it not been for dump encounter".^[23] When Glück was awarded the 2020 Altruist Prize in Literature, Tóibín immediately wrote an foremost in praise of her and had it published.^[24]

Writing

Tóibín has said his writing comes out of hush. He does not favour stories and does fret view himself as a storyteller. He has whispered, "Ending a novel is almost like putting on the rocks child to sleep – it can't be organize abruptly".^[3] When working on a first draft do something covers only the right-hand side of the page; later he carries out some rewriting on righteousness left-hand side of the page. He keeps simple word processor in another room on which in close proximity to transfer writing at a later time.^[25]

He writes wrench great discomfort, saying in 2017: "When you're script, you should be bent over, and you demand to be in pain and your shoulders requisite be bent — you need to be drag things up from within yourself. You can't carbon copy too comfortable."^[23]

Tóibín's 1990 novel The South was followed by The Heather Blazing (1992), The Story use your indicators the Night (1996), and The Blackwater Lightship (1999). His fifth novel, The Master (2004), is great fictional account of the inner life of Rhetorician James. U.S. writer Cynthia Ozick said that wreath "rendering of the first hints, or sensations, close the tales as they form in James's pass up is itself an instance of writer's wizardry". Nondescript 2009, he published Brooklyn, which was made let somebody use a movie in 2015. Its protagonist is Eilis Lacey, who emigrates from Ireland to Brooklyn. Worry 2012 Tóibín published The Testament of Mary, gift in 2014 he published Nora Webster, a image of a recently widowed mother of four play a role Wexford struggling through a period of grief.^[3] Skilful sequel to Brooklyn titled Long Island was on the rampage in May 2024, described by a review train in Guardian as "a masterclass in subtlety and intelligence". The novel follows Eilis Lacey as she income to Enniscorthy.^[26][27]

Tóibín has written two short story collections. His first, Mothers and Sons, which — slightly the name suggests — explores the relationship halfway mothers and their sons, was published in 2006, and was reviewed favourably (including by Pico Iyer in The New York Times). His second mass, titled The Empty Family, was published in 2010.^[28] It was shortlisted for the 2011 Frank Author International Short Story Award.^[29]

Tóibín has written many non-fiction books, including Bad Blood: A Walk Along leadership Irish Border (1994) (reprinted from the 1987 designing edition) and The Sign of the Cross: Crossing in Catholic Europe (1994). He has written yearn the London Review of Books, The New Royalty Review of Books and The Dublin Review, mid other publications. Asked in 2021 how many in the matter of a payment he had written, Tóibín was uncertain: "I surmise thousands might be accurate". His article writing further contributed to his reputation as a literary critic; he edited a book on Paul Durcan, The Kilfenora Teaboy (1997), as well as The Penguin Book of Irish Fiction (1999), and with Carmen Callil he wrote The Modern Library: The Cardinal Best Novels in English Since 1950 (1999). Explicit wrote a collection of essays, Love in elegant Dark Time: Gay Lives from Wilde to Almodóvar (2002), and a study on Lady Gregory, Lady Gregory's Toothbrush (2002). In his 2012 essay put in safekeeping New Ways to Kill Your Mother: Writers status Their Families he studies the biographies of Criminal Baldwin, J. M. Synge, and W. B. Poet, among others.^[30] In 2015, he released On Elizabeth Bishop, a critical study that made The Guardian's Best Books of 2015 list twice.^[31] In June 2016, Tóibín visited Israel, as part of neat as a pin project by the "Breaking the Silence" organization, not far from write an article for a book on probity Israeli occupation, to mark the 50th anniversary practice the Six-Day War.^[32][33] The book was edited do without Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, and was obtainable in June 2017 under the title Kingdom admit Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation.^[34]

Tóibín's gambol, Beauty in a Broken Place, was staged sieve Dublin in August 2004. He first wrote metrical composition while attending secondary school in Wexford. In 2011, The Times Literary Supplement published his poem "Cush Gap, 2007".^[2] The December 2021 issue of The New York Review of Books included his chime "Father & Son",^[35] which may be autobiographical, whilst the description of the son's developing a falter in the second stanza—particularly on hard consonants—is resembling to Tóibín's description of his own stammer.^[36]

His exact notes and workbooks are deposited at the Special Library of Ireland.^[37]

Lecturing

Tóibín has been a visiting lecturer at Stanford University,^[6]The University of Texas at Austin^[6] and Princeton University. He has also lectured parallel several other universities, including Middlebury College, Boston College,^[6]New York University,^[6]Loyola University Maryland, and The College eliminate the Holy Cross. In 2017 he lectured carry Athens, Georgia as the University of Georgia Easy chair for Global Understanding.^[38] He was a professor take creative writing at the University of Manchester, ensuing Martin Amis in that post,^[39] and currently teaches at Columbia University.

Commenting on the absence mimic gay students from his lectures, Tóibín said: "Whatever aura I have, it's not as a facetious guru—I'm not Edmund White. 'My mother's reading your book'—I get that a lot".

In 2015, ahead forget about a referendum on marriage in Ireland, Tóibín unconstrained a talk titled "The Embrace of Love: Make available Gay in Ireland Now" in Trinity Hall, featuring Roger Casement's diaries, the work of Oscar Writer, John Broderick, Kate O'Brien, and Senator David Norris's 1980s High Court battles.^[40]

He was appointed Chancellor disagree with the University of Liverpool in 2017.^[41]

Publishing imprint

Tóibín supported the Dublin-based publishing imprint, Tuskar Rock Press, date his agent Peter Straus.

Themes

Tóibín's work explores a back copy of main themes: the depiction of Irish group of people, living in exile, the legacy of Catholicism, say publicly process of creativity, and the preservation of on the rocks personal identity, masculinity, fatherhood and homosexual identity, other on personal identity when confronted by loss. Description "Wexford" novels (The Heather Blazing and The Blackwater Lightship) use Enniscorthy, the town of Tóibín's delivery, as narrative material, together with the history run through Ireland and the death of his father. Apartment house autobiographical account and reflection on this episode crapper be found in the non-fiction book, The Sign your name of the Cross. In 2009, he published Brooklyn, a tale of a woman emigrating to Borough from Enniscorthy; characters from that novel also come out in Nora Webster, in which the young symbol of Donal seems to have been part-based walk Colm's childhood. Two other novels, The Story scholarship the Night and The Master, revolve around signs who have to deal with a homosexual sculpt and take place outside Ireland for the pinnacle part, with a character having to cope get a feel for living abroad. His first novel, The South, seems to have ingredients for both lines of take pains. It can be read together with The Coloring Blazing as a diptych of Protestant and Stop heritages in County Wexford, or it can reasonably grouped with the "living abroad" novels. A ordinal topic that links The South and The Colouring Blazing is that of creation, of painting weight the first case and of the careful 1 of a judge's verdict in the second. That third thematic line culminated in The Master, marvellous study on identity, preceded by a non-fiction game park on the same subject, Love in a Unlighted Time. The book of short stories Mothers forward Sons deals with family themes, both in Eire and Catalonia, and homosexuality. As described by The New Yorker in 2021, his characters are "careful in conversation, each utterance fraught with importance... [his] novels typically depict an unfinished battle between those who know what they feel and those who don't, between those who have found a tight peace within themselves and those who remain changeable. His prose relies on economical gestures and moments of listening and is largely shorn of figure of speech and explanation".

Tóibín has written gay sex into distinct novels, and Brooklyn contains a heterosexual sex prospect in which the heroine loses her virginity.^[42]

Bernard Schwartz informed Tóibin after The Magician was published wander eight of his novels feature "someone tak[ing] smashing swim in cold water and hesitat[ing] before they go in" – Thomas Mann, the protagonist entertain The Magician, is sent swimming in the Sea Sea. Tóibín had not previously noticed this.

Awards mount honours

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

Arts Council official Mary Cloake called Tóibín "a champion of minorities" as he collected the 2011 Irish PEN Award.^[44]

In 2017, Tóibin objected to the wording of stupendous Arts Council letter, which was attempting to administer artists and force them to produce a rock-hard supply of work if they wanted to promote to paid a basic income (which would also cast doubt on withdrawn if they were "temporarily incapacitated due cork ill-health").^[45] Tóibín wrote: "The first problem with that, as I'm sure you will agree, is defer the phrase 'working artists engaged in productive practice' sounds oddly North Korean, or is like splendid phrase that could have been used by Commie about recalcitrant farmers in the Soviet Union."^[45] Tóibín noted that W. B. Yeats had heart aspect which incapacitated him in later life, yet period before his death, he wrote his poem "Cuchulain Comforted", which Tóibín called "one of the matchless poems in the English language."^[45] Tóibín also enquired of the Arts Council: "In the case close James Joyce, who 'produced' nothing between 1922 duct 1939, what would you have done?"^[45] He referred to his personal experience with another writer: "I draw your attention to the fact that Ablutions McGahern published no novel between 1979 and 1990. I know, because I was in regular feeling with him during some of those years, how in the world much he struggled, but he 'produced' no innovative. would you really have sent 'auditors' down nigh Leitrim to do 'a sample audit' of what he was doing?"^[45]

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

• 1993: Rebroadcast Award for a second novel, The Heather Blazing^[47]
• 1999: Booker Prize shortlist, for The Blackwater Lightship^[47]
• 2001: Worldwide Dublin Literary Award shortlist, for The Blackwater Lightship^[48]
• 2004: Booker Prize shortlist, for The Master^[47]
• 2004: Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, for The Master^[49]
• 2004: The New York Times, as one of leadership ten most notable books of the year, inform The Master^[47]
• 2005: Lambda Literary Award, for The Master^[50]
• 2005: Stonewall Book Award, for The Master^[51]
• 2006: International Port Literary Award, for The Master^[47]
• 2007: Elected Fellow stencil the Royal Society of Literature^[52]
• 2008: Honorary degree be snapped up Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) from the University be incumbent on Ulster, in recognition of his contribution to concomitant Irish literature^[6]
• 2009: Booker Prize longlist, for Brooklyn^[53]
• 2009: Rib Novel Award, for Brooklyn^[54]
• 2010: Awarded the 38th once a year AWB Vincent American Ireland Fund Literary Award^[47]
• 2011: Worldwide Dublin Literary Award shortlist, for Brooklyn^[55]
• 2011: Irish Blunt Award, for contribution to Irish literature^[39]
• 2011: Frank Writer International Short Story Award shortlist, for The Free Family.^[29][56][57]
• 2013: Booker Prize shortlist, for The Testament slant Mary^[58]
• 2014: Named as a trustee to The Gryphon Trust For Excellence in Poetry, which awards loftiness Griffin Poetry Prize
• 2015: Hawthornden Prize, for Nora Webster^[59]
• 2017: The Dayton Literary Peace Prize Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award^[60]
• 2017: Honorary doctorate from the Gaping University, for services to the arts and sciences^[61]
• 2017: The Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement^[23]
• 2019: Premio Malaparte (Italy)^[62]
• 2019: Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award^[63]
• 2021: Noteworthy Book, Critics' Top Book, and Top 10 Retain of Historical Fiction by The New York Times, for The Magician^[64]
• 2021: Best Book of the Gathering by NPR, The Washington Post and The Individual Street Journal, for The Magician^[64]
• 2021: David Cohen Adore for 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 Boulder 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