Colum McCann
Colum McCann
Colum McCannis an Irish writer of literary fiction. He was born in Dublin, Ireland and now lives in New York. He is a Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing in the Master of Fine Arts program at Hunter College, New York with fellow novelists Peter Carey and Tea Obreht, and has visited many universities and colleges all over the world...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth28 February 1965
CountryIreland
book years different
I have different books for different times of the day, let alone different seasons of the year!
heart heaven able
They told me Corrigan smashed all the bones in his chest when he hit the steering wheel. I thought, Well at least in heaven his Spanish chick'll be able to reach in and grab his heart.
clouds west herds
One small cloud, cast out by the herd, limps away to the west.
flight enough reason
The point of flight. To get rid of oneself. That was reason enough to fly.
tunes
The Irish are great for their tunes, but all their lovesongs are sad and their warsongs happy.
democracy stories
Stories are the best democracy we have. We are allowed to become the other we never dreamed we could be.
jobs emotional years
The job of the writer is to look at where he is now and make some sort of emotional sense of it, not only for that moment but for years to come.
years use dozen
About 25 years ago, I took a bicycle across the United States. I soon found out that the greatest item of clothing was the trusty bandanna. There were dozens of uses for a bandanna - as a pot holder, a chain cleaner, a sun shield, a headband, a snot rag, a declaration of Kerouacian intent.
privilege stories trump
I don't know of a greater privilege than being allowed to tell a story, or to listen to a story. They're the only thing we have that can trump life itself.
fiction alive wonderful
Anakana Schofield is part of a new wave of wonderful Irish fiction-international in scope and electrically alive.
summer believe book
Whenever summer rolls around I begin to realize that I'm a complete and utter book snob. In relation to reading, I have absolutely no guilty pleasures at all. No graphic novels. No murder mysteries. My summer read is really no different from my winter read. I know many bookshops and magazines would have me believe that our summer forays are different, but literature is literature, and unfortunately snobbery is snobbery.
class safe middle
I grew up sort of middle class, safe and suburban.
character thinking play
Increasingly I think of myself as some strange and solitary conductor, introduced to a group of very dynamic musicians who happen to be my characters, and I have no idea how they are going to play together, and I have certainly no idea how I am going to put manners on them.
men rocks heaven
Every man with his own peculiar vice. His will hardly rock heaven or hell.