An Hour with Colm Tóibín

Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn (2009) was named Novel of the Year in the Costa Book Awards in January, and joins a long list of beautifully executed novels: The South (1990), The Heather Blazing (1992), The Story of the Night (1996), The Blackwater Lightship (2000), and The Master (2004).

In Brooklyn, we accompany Eilis Lacey as she emigrates from Ireland to 1950s Brooklyn. The story has germinated with Tóibín since he was 12, when he overheard his mother’s friend talking about her daughter’s imminent departure for Brooklyn. Stylistically, he attributes the linear timeline to his immersion in the work of Jane Austen in recent years, and says "I wanted to cut everything right back. I was hoping that if you got the level of detail right then the reader would slowly become emotionally involved without knowing at what point that began".

As one reviewer has remarked, "reading Tóibín is like watching an artist paint one small stroke after another until suddenly the finished picture emerges to shattering effect".

We are honoured to welcome this much-loved Irish writer to Auckland. Chair: Damien Wilkins.

Presented as a part of the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival.

Event listed by Angela Radford

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