Colm Tóibín, the new laureate for Irish fiction, talks to Joseph Rezek of Boston University, and guest host Tara K. Menon of Harvard. The conversation begins with Colm’s latest novel The Magician, about the life of Thomas Mann, and whether we can or should think of novelists as magicians and then moves swiftly from one big question to the next. What are the limitations of the novel as a genre? Would Colm ever be interested in a writing a novel about an openly gay novelist? Why and how does death figure in Colm’s fiction? Each of Colm’s revealing, often deeply personal answers illuminates how both novels and novelists work. As Thoman Mann wrote of the “grubby business” of writing novels, Colm reminds us of the “day to day dullness of novel writing.” Insight and inspiration only arrive, he warns, after long, hard days of work.

Mentioned in this episode:

Robinson Crusoe (1719), Daniel Defoe

Pride and Prejudice (1813), Jane Austen

The Portrait of a Lady (1881), Henry James

The Wings of the Dove(1902), Henry James

The Ambassadors (1903), Henry James

The Golden Bowl(1904), Henry James

The Blackwater Lightship(1999), Colm Tóibín

The Master (2004), Colm Tóibín

Brooklyn(2009), Colm Tóibín

The Testament of Mary(2012), Colm Tóibín

Nora Webster(2015), Colm Tóibín

The Magician(2021), Colm Tóibín

Aarthi Vadde is Associate Professor of English at Duke University. Email: aarthi.vadde@duke.edu. John Plotz is Barbara Mandel Professor of the Humanities at Brandeis University and co-founder of the Brandeis Educational Justice Initiative. Email: plotz@brandeis.edu.

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