Colm Tóibín

Biography

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 euros, 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 "UK and Ireland Nobel" David Cohen Prize in 2021. He succeeded Martin Amis as professor of creative writing at the University of Manchester. He was Chancellor of the University of Liverpool from 2017 to 2022. He is now Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University in Manhattan.