Colm Tóibín has been announced as the new Laureate for Irish Fiction, for a three-year term beginning this month.
The Wexford-born author of The Master and Brooklyn is taking over the laureateship from Sebastian Barry, who followed inaugural Laureate Anne Enright.
An initiative of the Arts Council, the role of Laureate for Irish Fiction seeks to acknowledge the contribution of fiction writers to Irish artistic and cultural life by honouring an established Irish writer of fiction, encouraging a new generation of writers, promoting Irish literature nationally and internationally and encouraging the public to engage with high quality Irish fiction.
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Listen: New Laureate for Irish Fiction Colm Tóibín talks to Claire Byrne
Chair of the Arts Council, Professor Kevin Rafter said, "The Arts Council is very proud to award Colm Tóibín the honour of Laureate for Irish Fiction from 2022 to 2024. Colm is one of our finest writers with a recognised international reputation. His novels and short stories are not just acclaimed by critics but they are also loved by readers. I know he will bring his tremendous intellect, and endless energy and empathy, to the role."
Born in Enniscorthy in 1955, Tóibín is widely regarded as one of the preeminent Irish writers of the modern age. Since publishing his first novel The South (1990), subsequent acclaimed books include The Story of the Night (1996), The Blackwater Lightship (1999), The Master (2004, winner of the International Dublin Literary Award), House of Names (2017) and, most recently The Magician (2021), a literary imagining of the life of writer Thomas Mann. He has also published poetry, short story collections and literary criticism, and written a number of works for the stage.
His acclaimed novel Brooklyn was successfully adapted for the screen in 2015, winning a trio of Academy Award nominations, including nominations for Best Film and Best Actress.
Toibin is currently Mellon Professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia and Chancellor of Liverpool University, as well as President of Listowel Writers Week.
Watch: President Higgins meets Colm Tóibín for the Festival of Writing and Ideas, 2021
The new Laureate will begin his public programme with The Art of Reading, a monthly book club for library book clubs across the country, offered as an online event for readers everywhere on the last Thursday of every month.
Colm Tóibín said, "I am honoured to be appointed Laureate. I am proud to follow Anne Enright and Sebastian Barry in establishing a public role for a writer of fiction in Ireland. I will do what I can to work with a community of readers so that fiction continues to enrich our lives, allow us to see the world more clearly, or with a deepened sense of mystery. I will also work with fellow writers and aspiring writers to enhance the role novels and stories play in Irish life."
