| First Irish Winner of IMPAC Award
By Michelle Harty
Colm Tóibín on June 13 became the first Irish author to
be awarded the international IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for his novel
The Master. The award is the largest of its kind, with a prize of $125,000.
A four-judge panel from Britain, Canada, Ireland, and Italy chose between
132 novels from 43 countries and in translation from 15 non-English languages.
The Master is a fictional portrayal of the life of author Henry James,
a man born in 19th-century America who traveled Europe in pursuit of love
and art. James is successful in only the latter, and the story that unfolds
is a heart-wrenching tale of loneliness and longing.
Tóibín grew up in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, the fourth
of five children in a family of readers and writers. His father, Michael,
taught at St. Peter’s, the Christian Brothers school in Wexford
town for 30 years, and his older sister Bairbre wrote The Rising, a novel
about the 1798 rebellion on nearby Vinegar Hill. |
