Colm Tóibín

Colm Tóibín (born May 30, 1955, Enniscorthy, County Wexford, Ireland) is one of the most widely read writers in contemporary Irish literature. He has published fiction and nonfiction, including travelogues, essays, and criticism. His best-known works include the novels The Blackwater Lightship (1999), The Master (2004), Brooklyn (2009), and The Testament of Mary (2012).

Childhood

Tóibín was one of five children born to Mícheál and Bríd Tóibín. His father taught history at the Christian Brothers’ school in Enniscorthy, a small town in southeastern Ireland where the family has deep roots. Tóibín’s mother published several poems in local newspapers. In an essay published in The Guardian in 2012, Tóibín recalled growing up in a home full of books, despite his family having little money. He further explained that in a time when emigration was an everyday reality in Ireland, reading could have a profound impact on a person’s life trajectory:

While reading and revering books and writing itself had a spiritual value…they also had practical consequences. They could lead to a university scholarship, or at least a good, secure job. They might mean that you would not have to emigrate.

When Tóibín was eight years old, his father suffered a brain aneurysm, which required him to stay at a hospital in Dublin for treatment. His mother also went to Dublin, and Tóibín was sent to live for three months with relatives an hour and a half away from Enniscorthy. When Tóibín returned home, he developed a stammer and performed poorly at school, both of which he later attributed to the separation from his parents. When Tóibín was only 12 years old, his father died.

Tóibín received his secondary education at St. Peter’s College in Wexford, a slightly larger town where he enjoyed being away from the watchful eyes of Enniscorthy. He began writing poetry and received encouragement in his writing from one of the priests at his school. Tóibín became aware of his sexual attraction to men during his teen years, though this was not something he discussed openly with his family. In an interview with The New Yorker in 2021, Tóibín described the experience of being gay in 1970s Ireland:

It wasn’t as though you lived in a climate of fear. You lived in a climate of silence. All of us learned to live in our compartments.

Education, journalism, and nonfiction works

In 1975 Tóibín earned a B.A. from University College Dublin, where he studied English and history. From 1975 to 1978 he lived in Barcelona and taught English. He then returned to Ireland, where he initiated a career as a journalist and travel writer. Early writings include the travelogues Walking Along the Border (1987; reissued as Bad Blood: A Walk Along the Irish Border in 1994) and Dubliners (1990), both with photographs by Tony O’Shea, and Homage to Barcelona (1990). That year he also published The Trial of the Generals: Selected Journalism, 1980–1990. In 1994 he published Sign of the Cross: Travels in Catholic Europe. The book recounts pilgrimages Tóibín made to such sacred sites as Lourdes (France), Croagh Patrick (Ireland), and Santiago de Compostela (Spain), all the while confronting his relationship to the Roman Catholic faith of his childhood and interviewing people of varying beliefs, including priests, fellow pilgrims, and politicians.

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In 2001 he published Love in a Dark Time: And Other Explorations of Gay Lives and Literature, which offers intimate portraits of notable queer authors and artists including Oscar Wilde, Elizabeth Bishop, James Baldwin, and Pedro Almodóvar. Tóibín has also published a biography of the playwright and folklorist Lady Augusta Gregory, Lady Gregory’s Toothbrush (2002), and two books examining the impact of families and parental figures on famous writers: New Ways to Kill Your Mother: Writers and Their Families (2012) and Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know: The Fathers of Wilde, Yeats, and Joyce (2018).

Novels

Tóibín is probably best known by readers for his fiction, in which he often uses his County Wexford upbringing as a backdrop for stories exploring the changing social mores in 20th-century Ireland. In his first novel, The South (1990), an Irish woman abandons her marriage and young son and embarks on a lifelong journey toward self-discovery in Spain. His next novel, The Heather Blazing (1992), centers on the life, career, and relationships of an elderly, emotionally reserved Dublin judge. He followed up with The Story of the Night (1996) and The Blackwater Lightship (1999). The latter of these follows three generations of women as they care for a young male family member who is dying of AIDS. The poignant novel features some of Tóibín’s most elegant observations of modern Irish family life. It was made into a television film in 2004. The Master (2004) is a piercing portrait of the American literary giant Henry James; in 2006 the novel received the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

In 2009 Tóibín released Brooklyn, a best seller that was adapted into a critically acclaimed film (2015) starring Saoirse Ronan, with a screenplay by Nick Hornby. A love story set within the landscape of Irish migration to the United States in the 1950s, it was inspired by a piece of local gossip that Tóibín overheard as a child, about a young woman who returned to Ireland after living in Brooklyn without telling her family that she had gotten married in America. It is arguably Tóibín’s most beloved novel. Its sequel, Long Island, was released in 2024.

Among Tóibín’s later novels are The Testament of Mary (2012), which reflects on the life and crucifixion of Jesus through the perspective of his mother and was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize and adapted for the stage, and Nora Webster (2014). House of Names (2017) centers on Clytemnestra of Greek mythology. The Magician (2022) is a work of historical fiction based on the life of German novelist Thomas Mann.

Other writings and achievements

In 2011 Tóibín published a memoir, A Guest at the Feast. That same year he won the Irish PEN Award for his contribution to Irish literature. Though Tóibín is known primarily as a novelist, he is also accomplished as a short-story writer—collections include Mothers and Sons (2006) and The Empty Family (2010)—a playwright, a literary critic, an educator, and an editor. He published his first collection of poems, Vinegar Hill, in 2022. That same year the Arts Council of Ireland selected Tóibín as the Laureate for Irish Fiction, a position that is held for a three-year term. He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.