Warwick Arts Centre: Colm Toibin

On 14th January 2010, Colm Toibin was invited to give the annual Donald Charlton Lecture, which is part of the Humanities Research Centre annual conferences.

The lecture, which was held at the Warwick Arts Centre was entitled “In Conversation” and was moderated by Professor Jeremy Treglown of the Warwick University Writing Programme. Only weeks before, Mr Toibin was announced as the winner of the Costa Best Novel Award of 2009 for Brooklyn, a sparely written account of a young Irish woman’s emigration from 1950s Ireland to New York. It meant he was automatically in the running to win the overall Costa book of the Year award.

Colm Toibin is certainly no stranger to literary excellence. In 1995, he was awarded the E. M. Forster Award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters and in 2006, he won the IMPAC award for his book, The Master which was inspired and written during the time he spent in Spain.

During the lecture, the Irish writer proved to be witty and relaxed, bantering with the audience and sharing anecdotes about what it was like being short-listed for a major book award and then not winning it. His droll take on life turned out to be something of a surprise as many of his readers had observed that his books are generally rather gloomy and depressing and, as such, they expected the writer to be much the same.

He regaled students and guests with his experiences of teaching creative writing in Texas where he banned the use of the word “penis” because it came up with far too much regularity in the submitted texts of his students. He then read extracts from his award-winning book, Brooklyn before answering various questions by Professor Treglown and the general public about life as a writer living outside Ireland.

The lecture provided an interesting insight into his life, some of which he spent working in journalism in Ireland. He lived in Barcelona for some time in his youth and spent several years travelling through South America and Argentina. He spoke about the sense of displacement people feel living in another country which is not their own and why Brooklyn was an important book for him.

It is not too late to get your paws on a signed copy of Colm Toibin’s books. Many are still available at a discounted price at the Warwick University bookshop.