Art, Politics and Memory: a Conversation with Colm Tóibín

Abstract

The participation to a literary festival in Florence gave the interviewer the occasion to meet one of the most prolific and best loved Irish writers of our days. In what immediately took the shape and flavour of an informal and multifarious conversation – more than a strictly academic interview – Colm Tóibín, thus, shed an insightful light on his aesthetic beliefs and practice, but also on his political views, interest in current affairs and the impact of autobiography on his fiction. His relationship with John McGahern, one of the greatest twentieth-century Irish novelists, was also thoroughly addressed.