Shortlist Spotlight – Colm Tóibín

18th May, 2022

Colm Tóibín, author of The Magician, spoke to the Prize’s Sheila Averbuch about the inspirations for his novel, and how he researched his subject Thomas Mann and the times he lived in.  He even gave gave us a thrilling preview of his next novel, a sequel to Brooklyn!    You can watch the absorbing interview above or on our facebook page.

Colm also kindly answered some of our questions in writing…

Q: How do you feel about being shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction?  Do you consider yourself a historical novelist?

A: My novel ‘The Magician’ is set between 1880 and 1950 in Germany and the United States. It covers the First World War, the Munich Revolution, German inflation, the rise of Hitler, the Second World War, the division of Germany and the Cold War. It is told through the point of view of one man, who had a different response to each of the events listed above. I did a great deal of reading and I tried to imagine Thomas Mann’s life in this time. Having my work recognized and honoured in this way by the Walter Scott Prize is wonderful.

Q: How did the people and times you write about in this novel first lodge in your imagination?

A: I read many of Thomas Mann’s books when I was in my late teens and early        twenties. I thought then that books were written by people who were powerful, certain and entitled. I saw novels as solid. When Thomas Mann’s diaries were published, I learned that, in his case, what I had presumed was not so. I became interested in the gap between the public man and the private self.

Q: What place does research have in your writing?  When does the fiction take over from the facts?

A: I followed the facts, but what happens in his mind came from the imagination, as did the dialogue.

Q: Can writing about the past help us to deal with the present and think about the future?

A: I think it is important not to imagine that your writing can change the world, or even improve it. For four years or so – 1941 to 1945 – Thomas Mann was an important presence in the United States, rational, sane, eloquent and anti-fascist, and also German. He made a difference then, but his work itself also made a difference.