Colm Toibin
Colm Toibin
Colm Tóibínis an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, journalist, critic and poet...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth30 May 1955
CountryIreland
glamour interest listened sort
People's interest in glamour and clothes and nylon stockings and all those things were, when I was a little boy, the sort of world that I listened to.
followed period
Look at Austen. In her novels, you get a dance, followed by an encounter, followed by a letter, then a period of solitude. No flashbacks and no backstory. Let's have no more back story!
writing manipulation realizing
All writing is a form of manipulation, of course, but you realize that a plain sentence can actually do so much.
strong writing suffering
Suffering is too strong a word, but writing is serious work. I pull the stuff up from me - it's not as if it's a pleasure.
real school home
You create a world away from home and make new rooms for yourself. But when you arrive back home in your old rooms, the world you've made for yourself ceases to be real. Everything seems to crumble. Anyone who's been sent away to boarding school can understand that.
mean race talking
I said that when I looked at photographs of the firefighters who went into the Twin Towers, their faces looked to me like Irish faces. I hadn't yet learnt how careful outsiders have to be when talking about race in America, and I'd put my foot in it. Someone stood up and said aggressively, 'What do you mean by Irish faces?'
children sleep needs
I work very deliberately, with a plan. But sometimes I come to a point that I planned as the end and it needs softening. Ending a novel is almost like putting a child to sleep - it can't be done abruptly.
song morning writing
I never listen to music when I am writing. It would be impossible. I listen to Bach in the mornings, mostly choral music; also some Handel, mostly songs and arias; I like Schubert's and Beethoven's chamber music and Sibelius' symphonies; for opera, I listen to Mozart and in recent years Wagner.
book important fourth
It is important to find a publisher and equally important not to be noticed until your third or fourth book.
book thinking offering
I think you can get a sort of intensity and an edginess offering nine stories in a book. Competing versions of things.
determination writing mean
I write with a sort of grim determination to deal with things that are hidden and difficult, and this means, I think, that pleasure is out of the question. I would associate this with narcissism anyway, and I would disapprove of it.
father age difficult
Between the ages of 8 and 12 it was difficult to know what my father was saying, and he moved very slowly, and then he died.
writing taught
John McGovern taught me that it's OK to write repeatedly about the same things.
barcelona minus
'One Minus One' and 'Barcelona, 1975' are more or less autobiographical.