Colm Toibin Archive
Women in Myths
In such ancient stories as The Odyssey, women, who are often archetypes and who typically exist in the margins, are enlivened when their stories are told by contemporary writers, freeing them from their limited roles
Traversing Memory in The Heather Blazing
Through a juxtaposition of present-day and memory, Colm Tóibín’s second novel allows the reader to understand who the protagonist is and the pressure of his past on the present.
On Colm Tóibín’s The Master and the Designed Self
I recently fell in love with Colm Tóibín’s The Master, a novel about the life of “master” writer Henry James. Notable writers such as Michael Cunningham describe the novel, shortlisted in 2004 for the Man Booker, as “almost shockingly close to the mystery of art itself.”
The Possibilities of Brooklyn Past
Rarely do an adaptation and its source material mesh so well as they do in Brooklyn—the 2009 novel by former Ploughshares guest editor Colm Tóibín, and the 2015 film by John Crowley.
We Read Our Lives Wherever We Can
What happens when you read to manifest, rather than escape, your preoccupations?
Round-Up: THE BELL JAR’s New Cinematic Adaptation, a Reading at Oscar Wilde’s Prison, and PEN America’s New Awards
From a new film adaption of The Bell Jar to a massive reading in honor of Oscar Wilde, here are this week's biggest literary stories.