Life
1965- ; b. Dublin; son of Sean McCann, journalist and author on Sean O’Casey;
ed. Rathmines College of Commerce (journalism); worked as journalist in
New York and Dublin; left Ireland at 21; spent 2 years travelling travelled
from Massachusetts to San Francisco by bicycle (‘the magic of being
lost, of shucking the past’), living rough and working en route;
settled in New York, January 1998; winner of Hennessy Awards, 1990; issued
Fishing the Sloe Black River (1994), stories, winning 1994 Rooney
Prize and later filmed by Brendan Bourke, 1995; issued Songsdogs (Phoenix
1995), a novel, later adapted to screen; issued Fishing the Sloe Black
River was filmed in 1995, while a stage adaption of two stories as
monologues, was made by Colm Murphy of the UCD Dram. Soc., Dec. 1995);
issued This Side of Brightness (1998), a novel, is the saga of
Nathan Walker and family in New York 1916, long-listed for the Booker
Prize; issued Everything in This Country Must (2000), short stories
dealing obliquely with the N. Ireland Troubles, shortlisted for the IMPAC
Prize; winner of Princess Grace Memorial Prize of the Ireland Fund of
Monaco, October 2002; Dancer (2003), based on the life of the Russian
ballet-dancer Rudi Nureyev; divides time between Dublin & New York
where he lives with his wife Alison and a dg. (b. 1998); read at Listowel Writers’ Weekend, 2004.
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Works
Short Fiction, Fishing the Sloe-Black River (London: Phoenix
House/Orion 1994), 192pp. [title story et al. incl. ‘Round the Bend
and Back Again’; ‘Breakfast for Enrique’ [about AIDS in
NY]; ‘Along the Riverall’; ‘Cathal’s Lake’ [swans
as counter-image of Northern Ireland]; ‘Sisters’ [Brigid and
Sheona; anorexia; nationalism; sexual abuse]; The Year of the Green Pigeons’,
Irish Times, Weekend (23 Dec. 1995), p.6. [‘a seasonal short
story’]; Everything in This Country Must (London: Weidenfeld
& Nicholson 2000), 160pp. [Phoenix pb. rep. 2000]. Novels,
Songdogs (London: Phoenix 1995), 212pp.; This Side of Brightness
(London: Phoenix House; NY: Metropolitan Books 1998), 248pp.; The
Dancer (London; Weidenfeld & Nicholson 2003), 292pp.
Miscellaneous, Intro., Benedict Kiely, Collected Short Stories (2001). Also, BBC3 broadcast, 3 April 2004.; ‘Waking up to a country I do not understand’, in the Irish Times, Weekend (6 Nov. 2004), p.1 [infra].
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Criticism
Maureen Murphy, ‘New Opportunities for New Irish’, in Irish
Review (Winter 1991/1992).
Mary Morrisey, ‘Fictional Voices that Strike Home’, Irish Times (28 May 1994), p.8.
John Dunne, [omnibus review], review of Fishing the Sloe-Black River in Books Ireland (Sept. 1994), p.201.
John Dunne, ‘Ancestry of Act’, review of Songdogs, in Books Ireland (Oct. 1995), p.244.
[Shirley Kelly,] ‘The Moral Complexity of Life in the North’ [interview], in Books Ireland (Summer 2000), pp.165-66.
Desmond Traynor, review of Everything in this Country Must, in Books Ireland (Summer 2000).
John Kenny, review of Everything in This Country Must (London: Phoenix House 2000). in The Irish Times [Weekend], 9 April 2000, p.11.
Michael Kerrigan, review of Colum McCann, Everything in this Country Must (Phoenix 2000), 143pp. in Times Literary Supplement, 2 June, 2000, p.11.
Maureen Boyle, ‘Fiction’s Isn’t Lies; Memoir isn’t Truth’, review of The Dancer with works by Nuala O’Faolain and Kate Moses, in Fortnight [Belfast] (May 2003), p.16-17; espec. p.17.
Shirley Kelly, ‘The Tormented Dancer’ [interview], in Books Ireland (Feb. 2003).
[Shirley Kelly,] ‘The Moral Complexity of Life in the North’, interview with Colum McCann in Books Ireland (Summer 2000), pp.165-66.
Desmond Traynor, review of McCann, Everything in this Country Must (2000), remarks that his story ‘As if there were trees’ appeared in Shenanigans anthology. (Books Ireland, Summer 2000, q.p.).
Eileen Battersby, ‘From the ballet stage to the page’, interview-article with Colum McCann, in The Irish Times, 18 Jan. 2003 [Weekend].
Notes
Ciaran Carty & Dermot Bolger, eds., The Hennessy Book of Irish
Fiction (New Islands 1995), incls. story [with Mike McCormack, Michael
Taft, Marina Carr, Eoin MacNamee, Mary Costello, et al.]; also in Shenanigans
(Sceptre/Lir 1999).
Irish Film Association (Glucksman Ireland House NY 1996), catalogue lists Fishing the Sloe Black River, ‘an eloquent cinematic look at modern emigration and the effect it has on a rural town today’, dir. Brendan Bourke (15 mins.), based on the story by Colm McCann.
“Book of the Year” (2000) [Irish Times annual
feature]: Colum McCann disinterest in blockbusters and lists Sara berkeley
debut novel Shadowing Hannah, Emer Martin’s More Bread or I’ll
Appear; Gerard Donovan, The Wreckers, and a forthcoming novel by Derry-born
Sean O’Reilly, Curfew as well a Claire Keegan’s Antarctica and
Blanaid McKinney’s Big Mouth. (The Irish Times, 24 June 2000,
p.10.)
“Book of the Year” (2002) [Irish Times annual feature]: Colum McCann expresses admiration for William Kennedy’s Roscoe; Molly McCloskey’s The Beautiful Changes, Jennifer Johnston’s This is Not a Novel, Alexander Hemon’s Nowhere Man [‘confirms and cements everything that Question of Bruno suggested’, and Hugo Hamilton’s The speckled People. (Irish Times, 30 Nov. 2002).
“Summer Books” [annual column], in The Irish Times (24 June 2000), compiled by Rosita Sweetman: Colum McCann ‘stay[s] far away from the “blockbusters”; speaks of books by younger Irish writers ‘that don’t seem to get quite enough fuss made about them’ and cites Sara Berkeley’s Shadowing Hannah; Emer Martin, More Bread or I’ll Appear; and ‘an extraordinary collection of poems by the Wexford-born Gerard Donovan entitled The Wreckers; also forthcoming Curfew of Derry-born Seán O’Reilly, and Claire Keegan, Antartica.
Query: We Fell Like Snow (London: Orion Phoenix 1997), 256pp, concerning based in the history of Irish and Afro-American builders of New York subways [unlisted COPAC, Amazon, &c.]
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)