Colm Tóibín

Tóibín was born in 1955 in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, in the southeast of Ireland. He is the fourth of five children.{{cite web |url=https://www.chipublib.org/colm-toibin-biography/ |title=Colm Tóibín Biography |work=Chicago Public Library |date=30 April 2010 |access-date=21 February 2024}} He was reared in Parnell Avenue. His parents were Bríd and Michael Tóibín.{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/authorinterviews/9108553/World-of-Colm-Toibin-writer.html|title=The World of Colm Tóibín |work=The Daily Telegraph|location=London|first=Jessica|last=Salter|date=27 February 2012}} He is one of the two youngest children in his family, alongside his brother Niall.

His grandfather, Patrick Tobin, participated in the Easter Rising in April 1916, and was subsequently interned at Frongoch in Wales, while an uncle was involved in the IRB during the Irish Civil War. Following the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922, Tóibín's family favoured the Fianna Fáil political party.

Tóibín grew up in a home where there was, he said, "a great deal of silence".{{cite news|first=Colm|last=Tóibín|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/feb/17/colm-toibin-how-i-killed-my-mother |title=Colm Tóibín: writers and their families |work=The Guardian|date=17 February 2012|access-date=17 February 2012}} Unable to read until the age of nine, he also developed a stammer.{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/books/review/colm-toibin-by-the-book.html |title=Colm Toibin: By the Book |work=The New York Times |location=New York|date=1 October 2015|access-date=1 October 2015}} When he was eight years of age, in 1963, his father became ill and his mother sent her two youngest sons to stay with an aunt in County Kildare for three months so that she could take their father to Dublin for medical care; she did not call or write to her two youngest sons while tending their father. Tóibín traces the stammer he developed to this time – a stammer which would often leave him unable to speak his own name, and which he retained throughout his life. Tóibín's father – who was a schoolteacher – died in 1967, when his son was twelve years of age.

Tóibín received his secondary education at St Peter's College, Wexford, where he was a boarder between 1970 and 1972. He later spoke of finding some of the priests attractive.{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/austen-was-a-woeful-speller--26694366.html|title=Austen was a woeful speller . . .|work=Irish Independent|date=30 October 2010|quote=Although not abused by priests in the Wexford school he attended, he positively fancied some of them. 'Aged 15 or 16', he tells interviewer Susanna Rustin, 'I found some of the priests sexually attractive, they had a way about them... a sexual allure which is a difficult thing to talk about because it's usually meant to be the opposite way round'.}} He was also an altar boy in his youth.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/magazine/03toibin-t.html|title=His Irish Diaspora|work=The New York Times|location=New York|first=Alex|last=Witchel|date=3 May 2009|access-date=23 June 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160716183822/http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/magazine/03toibin-t.html|archive-date=16 July 2016}}

Tóibín went to University College Dublin (UCD), first attending history and English lectures there in 1972, before graduating with a BA in 1975. He thought about becoming a civil servant but decided against this. Instead, he left Ireland for Barcelona in 1975, later commenting: "I arrive the 24th of September 1975. Franco dies 20th November". The city would later feature in some of Tóibín's early work: his first novel, 1990's The South, has two characters meeting in Barcelona. His 1990 non-fiction work Homage to Barcelona also references the city in its title.

Tóibín left Barcelona in 1978 and came back to Ireland. He began writing for In Dublin. Tóibín became editor of the monthly news magazine Magill in 1982, and remained in the position until 1985. He left due to a dispute with Vincent Browne, Magill{{'}}s managing director. In 1997, when The New Yorker asked Tóibín to write about Seamus Heaney becoming President of Ireland, Tóibín noted that Heaney's popularity could survive the "kiss of death" of an endorsement by Conor Cruise O'Brien. The New Yorker telephoned Conor Cruise O'Brien to confirm that this was so, but Cruise O'Brien disagreed and the statement could not be corroborated.{{cite news|url=https://standpointmag.co.uk/issues/february-2009/the-cruiser-february-09-text-conor-cruise-obrien-roy-foster/|title=The Cruiser|work=Standpoint|first=R. F.|last=Foster|author-link=R. F. Foster (historian)|date=February 2009|access-date=22 November 2019|archive-date=23 November 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191123004141/https://standpointmag.co.uk/issues/february-2009/the-cruiser-february-09-text-conor-cruise-obrien-roy-foster/|url-status=dead}}

Tóibín is gay.{{cite news|url=http://observer.com/2004/06/a-subtle-play-of-relations-reveals-henry-james-in-full/|title=A Subtle Play of Relations Reveals Henry James in Full|work=The Observer|first=James|last=Kaplan|date=6 June 2004|access-date=16 November 2015}} Since {{c.}} 2012, Tóibín has been in a relationship with Hedi El Kholti, an editor of the literary press Semiotext(e). They share a home in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/mar/30/colm-toibin-interview-brooklyn-brexit|title=Colm Tóibín: 'There's a certain amount of glee at the sheer foolishness of Brexit'|work=The Guardian|first=Emma|last=Brockes|date=30 March 2018|access-date=6 May 2021}} He has served as a curator of exhibits for the Manhattan-based Morgan Library & Museum. He has judged both the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Giller Prize.{{cite news|url=https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2010/09/01/griffin_poetry_prize_jury_includes_colm_tibin.html|title=Griffin Poetry Prize jury includes Colm Tóibin|work=Toronto Star|location=Canada|date=1 September 2010|access-date=1 September 2010}} Tóibín does not watch television, and his awareness of British parliamentary politics can be summed up by his admission that he thought Ed Balls was a nickname for the then Labour Party leader Ed Miliband.{{cite news|url=https://www.rte.ie/entertainment/2015/0525/703707-colm-toibin-on-the-allure-of-the-greasy-fry/|title=Colm Tóibín on the allure of the breakfast fry-up|publisher=RTÉ|location=Dublin|date=25 May 2015|access-date=10 June 2019}} He is interested in tennis and plays the game for leisure; upon meeting Roger Federer, Tóibín enquired as to his opinion on the second serve.

As of 2008, he had family in Enniscorthy, including two sisters (Barbara and Nuala) and a brother (Brendan).

Tóibín lived on Southside Dublin City's Upper Pembroke Street as of 2005, where on occasions his friends — such as playwright Tom Murphy and former Gate Theatre director Michael Colgan — assembled for social interaction and entertainment.{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/playwright-didnt-curry-favour-in-row-at-party-25980083.html|title=Playwright didn't curry favour in row at party|work=Irish Independent|location=Dublin|first=Nicola|last=Anderson|date=13 June 2005|access-date=11 October 2021}}{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.ie/woman/celeb-news/beware-when-the-enemys-at-the-gate-26209389.html|title=Beware when the enemy's at the Gate|publisher=Independent.ie|location=Dublin|date=12 June 2005}}

Tóibín spent his prize money from his 2006 International Dublin Literary Award on building a house near Blackwater, County Wexford, where he holidayed as a child. He filled this house with artwork and expensive furniture. He possesses a personal key to the private gated park at Dublin's Fitzwilliam Square, which is shut to ordinary members of the public.

In 2019, Tóibín spoke about having survived testicular cancer, which spread to multiple organs, including a lung, liver, and lymph node.{{cite news|url=https://www.southeastradio.ie/2019/04/colm-toibin-discusses-his-battle-with-testicular-cancer/|title=Colm Toibin discusses his battle with testicular cancer|publisher=South East Radio|location=Wexford|date=12 April 2019|access-date=12 April 2019|quote=Mr Toibin has had ongoing treatment for the cancer which also showed up in his lung and liver.}}{{cite news|url=https://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/others/irish-writer-colm-toibin-cancer|title=Famed Irish writer Colm Toibin tells of secret cancer battle|publisher=IrishCentral|location=New York|date=15 April 2019|access-date=15 April 2019|quote=A week later the phone rang and I was told that I had a cancer of the testicles that had spread to a lymph node and to one lung.}}

Tóibin calls Henry James his favourite novelist; he is especially fond of The Portrait of a Lady, The Wings of the Dove, The Ambassadors, and The Golden Bowl.{{Cite news |date=1 October 2015 |title=Colm Toibin: By the Book |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/books/review/colm-toibin-by-the-book.html}} Tóibin fictionalized James in his novel The Master.

He would later fictionalize Thomas Mann in The Magician. He is especially fond of Buddenbrooks — which he first read in his late teens — and has also read The Magic Mountain, Doctor Faustus and the novella Death in Venice.

Tóibin's non-fiction was influenced by Joan Didion and Norman Mailer. He said decades after the publication of his debut novel, The South, "If you look at it, you see that the sentence structure is more or less taken from Didion", and expressed reservations about its quality.

In July 1972, aged 17, he had a summer job as a barman in the Grand Hotel in Tramore, County Waterford, working from six in the evening to two in the morning. He spent his days on the beach, reading The Essential Hemingway, the copy of which he still professes to have, its "pages stained with seawater". The book developed in him a fascination with Spain, led to a wish to visit that country, and gave him "an idea of prose as something glamorous, smart and shaped, and the idea of character in fiction as something oddly mysterious, worthy of sympathy and admiration, but also elusive. And more than anything, the sheer pleasure of the sentences and their rhythms, and the amount of emotion living in what was not said, what was between the words and the sentences."{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jun/17/best-holiday-reads|title=The best holiday reads: Colm Tóibín|work=The Guardian|date=17 June 2011|access-date=17 June 2011}}

Eavan Boland introduced him to the poetry of Louise Glück while Boland and Tóibín were at Stanford together in the 2000s. Tóibín stated in 2017 that "there are a few books of mine that I have written since then that I don't think I could have written had it not been for that encounter". When Glück was awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature, Tóibín immediately wrote an article in praise of her and had it published.{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/oct/09/louise-gluck-colm-toibin-on-a-brave-and-truthful-nobel-winner|title=Louise Glück: Colm Tóibín on a brave and truthful Nobel winner|work=The Guardian|first=Colm|last=Tóibín|date=9 October 2020}}

Tóibín has said his writing comes out of silence. He does not favour stories and does not view himself as a storyteller. He has said, "Ending a novel is almost like putting a child to sleep – it can't be done abruptly".{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/feb/19/colm-toibin-novelist-portrait-artist|title=Colm Tóibín, novelist – portrait of the artist|work=The Guardian|first=Laura|last=Barnett|date=19 February 2013|access-date=19 February 2013}} When working on a first draft he covers only the right-hand side of the page; later he carries out some rewriting on the left-hand side of the page. He keeps a word processor in another room on which to transfer writing at a later time.{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/jul/13/writers.rooms.colm.toibin#|title=Writers' rooms: Colm Tóibín|work=The Guardian|first=Colm|last=Tóibín|date=13 July 2007|access-date=22 September 2021}}

He writes in great discomfort, saying in 2017: "When you're writing, you should be bent over, and you need to be in pain and your shoulders should be bent — you need to be pulling things up from within yourself. You can't be too comfortable."

Tóibín's 1990 novel The South was followed by The Heather Blazing (1992), The Story of the Night (1996), and The Blackwater Lightship (1999). His fifth novel, The Master (2004), is a fictional account of the inner life of Henry James. U.S. writer Cynthia Ozick said that his "rendering of the first hints, or sensations, of the tales as they form in James's thoughts is itself an instance of writer's wizardry". In 2009, he published Brooklyn, which was made into a movie in 2015. Its protagonist is Eilis Lacey, who emigrates from Ireland to Brooklyn. In 2012 Tóibín published The Testament of Mary, and in 2014 he published Nora Webster, a portrait of a recently widowed mother of four in Wexford struggling through a period of grief. A sequel to Brooklyn titled Long Island was released in May 2024, described by a review in Guardian as "a masterclass in subtlety and intelligence". The novel follows Eilis Lacey as she returns to Enniscorthy.{{Cite news |last=Self |first=John |date=2024-05-19 |title=Long Island by Colm Tóibín review – the sequel to Brooklyn is a masterclass in subtlety and intelligence |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/may/19/long-island-by-colm-toibin-review-sequel-to-breakthrough-brooklyn |access-date=2024-05-20 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}{{Cite web |author=|date=2024-07-20 |title=The best new summer books: newly published holiday reads |url=https://theweek.com/culture-life/books/the-best-new-summer-books-newly-published-holiday-reads |access-date=2024-07-22 |website=The Week UK |language=en}}

Tóibín has written two short story collections. His first, Mothers and Sons, which — as the name suggests — explores the relationship between mothers and their sons, was published in 2006, and was reviewed favourably (including by Pico Iyer in The New York Times). His second collection, titled The Empty Family, was published in 2010.{{cite web|url=http://www.colmtoibin.com/content/empty-family-stories|title=The Empty Family Stories|access-date=21 March 2011|archive-date=1 November 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191101001021/http://www.colmtoibin.com/content/empty-family-stories|url-status=dead}} It was shortlisted for the 2011 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award.

Tóibín has written many non-fiction books, including Bad Blood: A Walk Along the Irish Border (1994) (reprinted from the 1987 original edition) and The Sign of the Cross: Travels in Catholic Europe (1994). He has written for the London Review of Books, The New York Review of Books and The Dublin Review, among other publications. Asked in 2021 how many articles he had written, Tóibín was uncertain: "I suppose thousands might be accurate". His article writing also contributed to his reputation as a literary critic; he edited a book on Paul Durcan, The Kilfenora Teaboy (1997), as well as The Penguin Book of Irish Fiction (1999), and with Carmen Callil he wrote The Modern Library: The 200 Best Novels in English Since 1950 (1999). He wrote a collection of essays, Love in a Dark Time: Gay Lives from Wilde to Almodóvar (2002), and a study on Lady Gregory, Lady Gregory's Toothbrush (2002). In his 2012 essay collection New Ways to Kill Your Mother: Writers and Their Families he studies the biographies of James Baldwin, J. M. Synge, and W. B. Yeats, among others.{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/feb/22/new-ways-kill-mother-colm-toibin-review|title=New Ways to Kill Your Mother by Colm Tóibín – review|work=The Guardian|first=Tessa|last=Hadley|date=22 February 2012|access-date=27 March 2012}} In 2015, he released On Elizabeth Bishop, a critical study that made The Guardian{{'}}s Best Books of 2015 list twice.{{cite book|url=http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10425.html|title=On Elizabeth Bishop Colm Tóibín|publisher=Princeton University Press|first=Colm|last=Tóibín|date=22 March 2015|isbn=9780691154114|access-date=28 December 2015}} In June 2016, Tóibín visited Israel, as part of a project by the "Breaking the Silence" organization, to write an article for a book on the Israeli occupation, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War.{{cite news|url=https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2016-07-18/ty-article/50-years-of-israeli-occupation-told-through-an-authors-eyes/0000017f-dc4e-d3ff-a7ff-fdee67550000|title=50 Years of Israeli Occupation, Told Through the Eyes of an Author: Irish author Colm Toibin toured the West Bank last week to collect material for his contribution to a 2017 anthology|work=Haaretz|first=Karin|last=Laub|date=18 July 2016}}{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/22/leading-authors-to-write-about-visiting-israel-and-the-occupied-territories|title=Leading authors to write about visiting Israel and the occupied territories|work=The Guardian|first=Sian|last=Cain|date=22 February 2016}} The book was edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, and was published in June 2017 under the title Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation.{{cite web|url=https://www.harpercollins.com/products/kingdom-of-olives-and-ash-michael-chabonayelet-waldman?variant=32207717433378|title=Kingdom of Olives and Ash Writers Confront the Occupation By Michael Chabon, Ayelet Waldman|access-date=18 August 2022}}

Tóibín's play, Beauty in a Broken Place, was staged in Dublin in August 2004. He first wrote poetry while attending secondary school in Wexford. In 2011, The Times Literary Supplement published his poem "Cush Gap, 2007".{{cite news|url=http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/toibin-tries-his-hand-at-poetry-2678604.html|title=Toibin tries his hand at poetry . . .|work=Irish Independent|location=Dublin|date=18 June 2011}} The December 2021 issue of The New York Review of Books included his poem "Father & Son",{{cite magazine|url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2021/12/02/father-son/|title=Father & Son|magazine=The New York Review of Books|first=Colm|last=Tóibín|date=2 December 2021|access-date=11 November 2021}} which may be autobiographical, as the description of the son's developing a stammer in the second stanza—particularly on hard consonants—is similar to Tóibín's description of his own stammer.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/books/review/colm-toibin-by-the-book.html|title=Colm Toibin: By the Book|work=The New York Times|date=1 October 2015|access-date=11 November 2021}}

His personal notes and workbooks are deposited at the National Library of Ireland.{{cite news|url=http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/arts/seamus-heaney-declutters-home-and-donates-personal-notes-to-national-library-2970392.html|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120802045337/http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/arts/seamus-heaney-declutters-home-and-donates-personal-notes-to-national-library-2970392.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=2 August 2012|title=Seamus Heaney declutters home and donates personal notes to National Library|work=Irish Independent|location=Dublin|first=Lyndsey|last=Telford|date=21 December 2011}}

Tóibín has been a visiting professor at Stanford University, The University of Texas at Austin and Princeton University. He has also lectured at several other universities, including Middlebury College, Boston College, New York University, Loyola University Maryland, and The College of the Holy Cross. In 2017 he lectured in Athens, Georgia as the University of Georgia Chair for Global Understanding.{{cite web|url=http://onlineathens.com/features/2017-03-14/author-brooklyn-coming-3-days-events-athens|title=Author of 'Brooklyn' coming for 3 days of events in Athens|publisher=Online Athens|first=H.|last=Butschek|year=2017}} He was a professor of creative writing at the University of Manchester, succeeding Martin Amis in that post, and currently teaches at Columbia University.{{fact|date=March 2025}}

Commenting on the absence of gay students from his lectures, Tóibín said: "Whatever aura I have, it's not as a gay guru—I'm not Edmund White. 'My mother's reading your book'—I get that a lot".

In 2015, ahead of a referendum on marriage in Ireland, Tóibín delivered a talk titled "The Embrace of Love: Being Gay in Ireland Now" in Trinity Hall, featuring Roger Casement's diaries, the work of Oscar Wilde, John Broderick, Kate O'Brien, and Senator David Norris's 1980s High Court battles.{{cite news|url=http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/referendum/gay-people-have-a-right-to-ritualise-and-copperfasten-their-love-tibn-31224190.html|title='Gay people have a right to ritualise and copper-fasten their love' - Tóibín|work=Irish Independent|location=Dublin|first=Kirsty|last=Blake Knox|date=15 May 2015}}

He was appointed Chancellor of the University of Liverpool in 2017.{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/02/colm-toibin-appointed-chancellor-liverpool-university-author-brooklyn-higher-education|title=Colm Tóibín appointed chancellor of Liverpool University|work=The Guardian|first=Danuta|last=Kean|date=2 February 2017|access-date=2 February 2017}}

Tóibín founded the Dublin-based publishing imprint, Tuskar Rock Press, with his agent Peter Straus.

Tóibín's work explores a number of main themes: the depiction of Irish society, living in exile, the legacy of Catholicism, the process of creativity, and the preservation of a personal identity, masculinity, fatherhood and homosexual identity, and on personal identity when confronted by loss. The "Wexford" novels (The Heather Blazing and The Blackwater Lightship) use Enniscorthy, the town of Tóibín's birth, as narrative material, together with the history of Ireland and the death of his father. An autobiographical account and reflection on this episode can be found in the non-fiction book, The Sign of the Cross. In 2009, he published Brooklyn, a tale of a woman emigrating to Brooklyn from Enniscorthy; characters from that novel also appear in Nora Webster, in which the young character of Donal seems to have been part-based on Colm's childhood. Two other novels, The Story of the Night and The Master, revolve around characters who have to deal with a homosexual identity and take place outside Ireland for the most part, with a character having to cope with living abroad. His first novel, The South, seems to have ingredients for both lines of work. It can be read together with The Heather Blazing as a diptych of Protestant and Catholic heritages in County Wexford, or it can be grouped with the "living abroad" novels. A third topic that links The South and The Heather Blazing is that of creation, of painting in the first case and of the careful wording of a judge's verdict in the second. This third thematic line culminated in The Master, a study on identity, preceded by a non-fiction book on the same subject, Love in a Dark Time. The book of short stories Mothers and Sons deals with family themes, both in Ireland and Catalonia, and homosexuality. As described by The New Yorker in 2021, his characters are "careful in conversation, each utterance fraught with importance... [his] novels typically depict an unfinished battle between those who know what they feel and those who don't, between those who have found a taut peace within themselves and those who remain unsettled. His prose relies on economical gestures and moments of listening and is largely shorn of metaphor and explanation".

Tóibín has written gay sex into several novels, and Brooklyn contains a heterosexual sex scene in which the heroine loses her virginity.{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/oct/16/sex-disappearing-from-novels|title=Let's not talk about sex — why passion is waning in British books|work=The Guardian|first=Susanna|last=Rustin|date=16 October 2010|access-date=16 October 2010}}

Bernard Schwartz informed Tóibin after The Magician was published that eight of his novels feature "someone tak[ing] a swim in cold water and hesitat[ing] before they go in" – Thomas Mann, the protagonist in The Magician, is sent swimming in the Baltic Sea.{{cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/20/how-colm-toibin-burrowed-inside-thomas-manns-head|title=How Colm Tóibín Burrowed Inside Thomas Mann's Head|magazine=The New Yorker|first=D. T.|last=Max|date=20 September 2021}} Tóibín had not previously noticed this.

Tóibín's fellow artists elected him to Aosdána, which is supported by the Arts Council.{{cite web|url=http://aosdana.artscouncil.ie/members/toibin/|title=Colm Tóibín}}

Arts Council director Mary Cloake called Tóibín "a champion of minorities" as he collected the 2011 Irish PEN Award.{{cite news|url=http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0212/1224289634748.html|title=Tóibín on song as he picks up Irish Pen award|newspaper=The Irish Times|location=Dublin|first=Rosita|last=Boland|date=12 February 2011|access-date=12 February 2011}}

In 2017, Tóibin objected to the wording of an Arts Council letter, which was attempting to regulate artists and force them to produce a constant supply of work if they wanted to be paid a basic income (which would also be withdrawn if they were "temporarily incapacitated due to ill-health"). Tóibín wrote: "The first problem with this, as I'm sure you will agree, is that the phrase 'working artists engaged in productive practice' sounds oddly North Korean, or is like a phrase that could have been used by Stalin about recalcitrant farmers in the Soviet Union." Tóibín noted that W. B. Yeats had heart disease which incapacitated him in later life, yet days before his death, he wrote his poem "Cuchulain Comforted", which Tóibín called "one of the greatest poems in the English language." Tóibín also enquired of the Arts Council: "In the case of James Joyce, who 'produced' nothing between 1922 and 1939, what would you have done?" He referred to his personal experience with another writer: "I draw your attention to the fact that John McGahern published no novel between 1979 and 1990. I know, because I was in regular touch with him during some of those years, how much he struggled, but he 'produced' no novel... would you really have sent 'auditors' down to Leitrim to do 'a sample audit' of what he was doing?"{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/toibin-likens-arts-council-to-north-korea-in-row-over-aosdana-funding-35644221.html|title=Tóibín likens Arts Council to North Korea in row over Aosdána funding|work=Irish Independent|location=Dublin|first=John|last=Spain|date=22 April 2017|access-date=28 September 2022}}

In 2011, John Naughton, of The Observer, included Tóibín in his list of Britain's three hundred "public figures leading our cultural discourse" — despite Tóibín, like Naughton, being Irish:This loose list quickly became somewhat discredited on account of numerous flagrant inaccuracies and anomalous inclusions (it even included Alan Rusbridger, the then editor-in-chief of The Observer{{'}}s sister title), and a correction was printed the following Sunday, noting that several of those included "would not claim to be British" (most notably Seamus Heaney and Tóibín), correcting misspelt, and even incorrect, names - e.g. "Andrew (not Anthony)", "David (not Derek)" -, while one inclusion was discovered in the course of that week to have been dead since 1995. See: {{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2011/may/08/top-300-british-intellectuals|title=Britain's top 300 intellectuals|work=The Observer|first=John|last=Naughton|author-link=John Naughton|date=8 May 2011}}

• 1993: Encore Award for a second novel, The Heather Blazing{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.ie/regionals/wexfordpeople/news/colm-is-an-author-of-formidable-talent-27725312.html|title=Colm is an author of formidable talent|work=Wexford People|date=29 June 2011}}
• 1999: Booker Prize shortlist, for The Blackwater Lightship
• 2001: International Dublin Literary Award shortlist, for The Blackwater Lightship{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/may/16/news.impacprize|title=First novel takes fiction's richest prize|work=The Guardian|first=Emma|last=Yates|date=16 May 2001|access-date=16 May 2001|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140306153715/http://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/may/16/news.impacprize|archive-date=6 March 2014}}
• 2004: Booker Prize shortlist, for The Master
• 2004: Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, for The Master{{cite web|url=https://www.awardsarchive.com/2004-los-angeles-times-book-prize-fiction-winner-and-nominees/|title=2004 Los Angeles Times Book Prize — Fiction Winner and Nominees|website=Awards Archive|language=en-US|date=25 March 2020|access-date=10 March 2022}}
• 2004: The New York Times, as one of the ten most notable books of the year, for The Master
• 2005: Lambda Literary Award, for The Master{{cite web|url=https://www.lambdaliterary.org/2005/07/lambda-literary-awards-2004/|title=17th Annual Lambda Literary Awards|website=Lambda Literary|language=en|first=Antonio|last=Gonzalez Cerna|date=9 July 2005|access-date=15 February 2022}}
• 2005: Stonewall Book Award, for The Master{{cite web|url=https://www.ala.org/rt/rrt/award/stonewall/honored#2005|title=Stonewall Books Awards List|year=2005}}
• 2006: International Dublin Literary Award, for The Master
• 2007: Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature{{cite web|url=http://www.rslit.org/content/fellows|title=Royal Society of Literature All Fellows|publisher=Royal Society of Literature|access-date=10 August 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100305070326/http://www.rslit.org/content/fellows|archive-date=5 March 2010}}
• 2008: Honorary degree of Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) from the University of Ulster, in recognition of his contribution to contemporary Irish literature{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.ie/regionals/goreyguardian/news/author-toibin-receives-honorary-degree-in-ulster-27318840.html|title=Author Toibín receives honorary degree in Ulster|work=Enniscorthy Guardian|date=3 July 2008|access-date=28 September 2022}}
• 2009: Booker Prize longlist, for Brooklyn{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jul/28/heavyweights-clash-booker-longlist|title=Heavyweights clash on Booker longlist|work=The Guardian|first=Mark|last=Brown|date=28 July 2009|access-date=28 July 2009}}
• 2009: Costa Novel Award, for Brooklyn{{cite news|url=http://www.rte.ie/arts/2010/0104/costaawards.html|title=Tóibín wins Costa Novel Award|work=RTÉ Arts|publisher=RTÉ|location=Dublin|date=4 January 2010|access-date=4 January 2010}}
• 2010: Awarded the 38th annual AWB Vincent American Ireland Fund Literary Award
• 2011: International Dublin Literary Award shortlist, for Brooklyn{{cite news|url=http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2011/0412/1224294471315.html|title=William Trevor makes an Impac|newspaper=The Irish Times|location=Dublin|date=12 April 2011|access-date=12 April 2011|archive-date=23 October 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121023163937/http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2011/0412/1224294471315.html|url-status=dead}}
• 2011: Irish PEN Award, for contribution to Irish literature{{cite news|url=http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0204/1224288985697.html|title=Colm Tóibín wins Irish Pen award|newspaper=The Irish Times|location=Dublin|first=Caroline|last=Walsh|date=4 February 2011|access-date=4 February 2011}}
• 2011: Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award shortlist, for The Empty Family.{{cite news|url=http://www.enniscorthyguardian.ie/news/tx00f3ibx00edn-in-line-for-major-prize-2819695.html|title=Tóibín in line for major prize|work=Enniscorthy Guardian|first=Conor|last=Cullen|date=12 July 2011|access-date=12 July 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111004071532/http://www.enniscorthyguardian.ie/news/tx00f3ibx00edn-in-line-for-major-prize-2819695.html|archive-date=4 October 2011}}{{cite news|url=http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2011/0709/1224300361201.html|title=Two Irish authors make awards shortlist|newspaper=The Irish Times|location=Dublin|first=Caroline|last=Walsh|date=9 July 2011|access-date=9 July 2011}}{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jul/12/irish-writers-frank-o-connor-shortlist|title=Strong showing for Irish writers on Frank O'Connor shortlist|work=The Guardian|first=Alison|last=Flood|date=9 July 2011|access-date=9 July 2011}}
• 2013: Booker Prize shortlist, for The Testament of Mary{{cite web|url=http://www.themanbookerprize.com/man-booker-prize-2013|title=The Man Booker Prize 2013|date=7 August 2013|access-date=2 December 2014|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141130051454/http://www.themanbookerprize.com/man-booker-prize-2013|archive-date=30 November 2014}}
• 2014: Named as a trustee to The Griffin Trust For Excellence in Poetry, which awards the Griffin Poetry Prize
• 2015: Hawthornden Prize, for Nora Webster{{cite news|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/colm-t%C3%B3ib%C3%ADn-wins-hawthornden-prize-for-nora-webster-1.2294019|title=Colm Tóibín wins Hawthornden Prize for 'Nora Webster'|newspaper=The Irish Times|location=Dublin|first=Martin|last=Doyle|date=23 July 2015|access-date=23 July 2015}}
• 2017: [http://daytonliterarypeaceprize.org/ The Dayton Literary Peace Prize] Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/apnewsbreak-irish-novelist-wins-ohio-literary-peace-award/2017/07/13/0ebdf5d2-67ac-11e7-94ab-5b1f0ff459df_story.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170713111316/https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/apnewsbreak-irish-novelist-wins-ohio-literary-peace-award/2017/07/13/0ebdf5d2-67ac-11e7-94ab-5b1f0ff459df_story.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=2017-07-13|title=APNewsBreak: Irish novelist wins Ohio literary peace award|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=2017-07-13}}
• 2017: Honorary doctorate from the Open University, for services to the arts and sciences{{cite news|url=https://www.irishnews.com/news/2017/10/20/news/colm-to-ibi-n-honoured-by-the-open-university-1166754/|title=Colm Tóibín honoured by The Open University|work=The Irish News|first=Simon|last=Doyle|date=20 October 2017|access-date=28 September 2022}}
• 2017: The Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement{{cite news|url=https://kenyoncollegian.com/arts/2017/11/record-colm-toibin/|title=On the Record: Colm Tóibín|work=Kenyon Collegian|first1=Dan|last1=Nolan|first2=Kevin|last2=Crawford|date=16 November 2017|access-date=28 September 2022}}
• 2019: Premio Malaparte (Italy){{cite web|url=https://www.premiomalaparte.it/colm-toibin|title=Il Malaparte 2019 a Colm Tóibín|publisher=Premio Malaparte|access-date=25 October 2022}}
• 2019: Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/colm-toibin-my-arduous-journey-from-imbecile-to-writer-38720732.html|title='My arduous journey from imbecile to writer'|work=Sunday Independent|location=Dublin|first=Colm|last=Tóibín|date=24 November 2019|access-date=28 September 2022}} Edited version of acceptance speech.
• 2021: Notable Book, Critics' Top Book, and Top 10 Book of Historical Fiction by The New York Times, for The Magician
• 2021: Best Book of the Year by NPR, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, for The Magician{{cite web|url=https://irishstudies.nd.edu/events/2022/04/08/postponed-colm-toibin-a-reading-and-talk/|title=POSTPONED - Colm Tóibín: A Reading and Talk|publisher=Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies|date=8 April 2022|access-date=28 September 2022}}
• 2021: David Cohen Prize for Literature{{cite news|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/colm-toibin-wins-david-cohen-prize-for-literature-2021-1.4754218|title=Colm Tóibín wins David Cohen Prize for Literature 2021: Previous winners of £40,000 award for a lifetime's work have gone on to win Nobel|newspaper=The Irish Times|location=Dublin|first=Martin|last=Doyle|date=13 December 2021}}
• 2022: Folio Prize, for The Magician{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/mar/22/irish-novelist-colm-toibin-wins-rathbones-folio-prize-for-the-magician|title=Irish novelist Colm Tóibín wins Rathbones Folio prize for The Magician|work=The Guardian|first=Lucy|last=Knight|date=22 March 2022|access-date=23 March 2022}}
• 2025: International Dublin Literary Award, Longlisted for Long Island.{{Cite web |title=Books |url=https://dublinliteraryaward.ie/the-library/books/?load_mode=link-load&list_type=by_book_category&style_preset=the-library&books_ids=0&authors_ids=0&libraries_ids=0&prize_year_ids=0&book_cats_ids=642&library_cats_ids=0&heading=2025%20LONGLIST%20REVEALED |access-date=2025-01-22 |website=Dublin Literary Award |language=en-US}}

{{main|Colm Tóibín bibliography}}

Tóibín has published 11 novels.

• {{citation |title=The South |year=1990 |publisher=Serpent's Tail |isbn=978-0-330-32333-8}}
• {{citation |title=The Heather Blazing |year=1992 |publisher=Picador |isbn=978-0-330-32125-9}}
• {{citation |title=The Story of the Night |year=1996 |publisher=Picador |isbn=978-0-330-34017-5}}
• {{citation |title=The Blackwater Lightship |year=1999 |publisher=McClelland and Stewart |isbn=978-0-7710-8561-1}}
• {{citation |title=The Master |year=2004 |publisher=Picador |isbn=978-0-330-48565-4}}
• {{citation |title=Brooklyn |year=2009 |location=Dublin |publisher=Tuskar Rock Press |isbn=978-3-446-23566-3}}
• {{citation |title=The Testament of Mary |year=2012|publisher=Viking |isbn=978-1451688382}}
• {{citation |title=Nora Webster|year=2014|publisher=Scribner |isbn=978-1439138335}}
• {{citation |title=House of Names |year=2017|publisher=Scribner |isbn=978-1501140211}}
• {{citation |title=The Magician |year=2021|publisher=Scribner |isbn=978-0241004616}}
• {{citation |title=Long Island |year=2024|publisher=Picador |isbn=978-1-03-502944-0}}; Scribner, 2024, {{ISBN|978-1-4767-8511-0}}

{{Portal|Catholicism|Ireland|LGBTQ|Literature|Novels|Writing}}

• LGBT culture in New York City
• List of LGBT people from New York City

{{reflist|30em}}

• Ryan, Ray. Ireland and Scotland: Literature and Culture, State and Nation, 1966–2000. Oxford University Press, 2002.

• Allen Randolph, Jody. "Colm Tóibín, December 2009." Close to the Next Moment. Manchester: Carcanet, 2010.
• Boland, Eavan. "Colm Tóibín." Irish Writers on Writing. San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 2007.
• Costello-Sullivan, Kathleen. Mother/Country: Politics of the Personal in the Fiction of Colm Tóibín. Reimagining Ireland series. Ed. Eamon Maher. Bern: Peter Lang, 2012.
• Cronin, Michael G. 'Revolutionary Bodies: homoeroticism and the political imagination in Irish Writing'. Manchester University Press, 2022.
• Delaney, Paul. Reading Colm Tóibín. Dublin: Liffey Press, 2008, {{ISBN|978-1-905785-41-4}}
• Educational Media Solutions, 'Reading Ireland, Contemporary Irish Writers in the Context of Place', 2012, Films Media Group
• {{cite magazine |author=Max, D. T. |date=20 September 2021 |title=Secrets and Lies: Colm Tóibín Is a Great Talker—Yet His Novels Are Full of People Who Cannot Speak Their Minds |department= |magazine=The New Yorker |volume=97 |issue=29 |pages=50–59 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/20/how-colm-toibin-burrowed-inside-thomas-manns-head }}

{{Wikiquote}}

• {{Official website}}
• [http://aosdana.artscouncil.ie/members/toibin/ Colm Tóibín] at Aosdána
• {{British council|id=colm-toibin|name=Colm Tóibín}}
• [http://www.nybooks.com/authors/7334 Contributions by Tóibín] to The New York Review of Books (article archive)
• [http://books.guardian.co.uk/links/sites_on_writers/s-z/links/0,6135,1176973,00.html Biographical profile] at The Guardian
• [https://www.theguardian.com/profile/colm-toibin?INTCMP=SRCH Contributions by Tóibín] to The Guardian (article archive)
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110313113237/http://www.irishpen.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Colm_Tobhh4.jpg Tóibín receiving the 2011 Irish PEN Award] – photo credit Alan Betson / The Irish Times
• [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06tq3th Interview] at Desert Island Discs (BBC Radio 4, first broadcast 7 January 2016)
• {{LCAuth|n91025439|Colm Tóibín|63|ue}}

{{Colm Tóibín}}

{{International Dublin Literary Award}}

{{Great Hunger}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Toibin, Colm}}

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