Colm Tóibín

Colm Tóibín was born on 30 May 1955 in Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford. Unable to read until the age of nine, Tóibín developed a stammer at eight, which he attributed to the emotional strain of being separated from his parents while they sought treatment for his father’s brain aneurysm in Dublin, leaving him and in the care of his aunt in Kildare. Tóibín first began writing poetry and became aware of his homosexuality during his secondary school education at St Peter’s College, Wexford. After attending St Peter’s College, he attended University College Dublin, where he studied English and History, graduating with a BA in 1975. Upon his graduation, Tóibín moved to Barcelona in 1975, where he taught English, and would find inspiration for some of his later works. Tóibín moved back to Ireland in 1978, and started a career as a journalist and travel writer, publishing travelogues and spending a three year stint as the editor of Magill, a monthly news magazine. 

Despite his bibliography including non-fiction, short stories, poetry and plays – Tóibín is best known for his novels, of which he has written eleven. His first novel, The South (1990), was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award and won the Irish Times Irish Literature Prize for First Book. He published his second novel, The Heather Blazing, not long after in 1992, winning the 1993 Encore Award and earning a place in Aosdána in 1993. Tóibín’s fifth novel, The Master, quickly became one of his most successful after its publication in 2004 – 2004 LA Times Book Prize for Fiction, the 2005 Lambda Literary Award, the 2005 Stonewall Book Award and the 2006 International Dublin Literary Award. Tóibín was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2007, and his next novel, Brooklyn (2009), won the 2009 Costa Award and was adapted into a feature film in 2015, which won numerous awards and three Academy Award Nominations. 

Since then, he has won the Hawthornden Prize for his eight novel, Nora Webster (2014), the Folio Prize for his tenth novel, The Magician (2021), as well as accolades including the 2010 AWB Vincent American Ireland Fund Literary Award, the Irish PEN Award in 2011, the 2017 Dayton Literary Peace Prize Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award, the 2017 Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement, the 2019 Premio Malaparte, the 2019 Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award and the 2021 David Cohen Prize for Literature. Tóibín has also been honoured with a Doctor of Letters from the University of Ulster, a Doctor of the University from The Open University and an appointment by The Arts Council as the Laureate for Irish Fiction 2022-2024.