Colum McCann

Some Practical and Philosophical Advice

From the bestselling author of the National Book Award winner Let the Great World Spin comes a lesson in how to be a writer--and so much more than that. Intriguing and inspirational, this book is a call to look outward rather than inward. McCann asks his readers to constantly push the boundaries of experience, to see empathy and wonder in the stories we craft and hear. A paean to the power of language, both by argument and by example, Letters to a Young Writer is fierce and honest in its testament to the bruises delivered by writing as both a profession and a calling. It charges aspiring writers to learn the rules and even break them. These fifty-two essays are ultimately a profound challenge to a new generation to bring truth and light to a dark world through their art.

From the National Book Award-winning and bestselling author of Let the Great World Spin and TransAtlantic, comes a novella and three stories of immediate power and grace'A superbly crafted and deeply moving collection of fiction…underscores [McCann’s] reputation as a contemporary master' Kirkus'Separate and together, these four works prove McCann a master with a poet’s ear, a psychologist’s understanding, and a humanitarian’s conscience' Publishers Weekly_______________________A story in this collection has been longlisted for the Sunday Times EFG short story awardAs it was, it was like being set down in the best of poems, carried into a cold landscape, blindfolded, turned around, unblindfolded, forced, then, to invent new ways of seeing. It is a cold day in January when J. Mendelssohn wakes in his Upper East Side apartment. Old and frail, he is entirely reliant on the help of his paid carer, and as he waits for the heating to come on, the clacking of the pipes stirs memories of the past; of his childhood in Lithuania and Dublin, of his distinguished career as a judge, and of his late wife, Eileen. Later he leaves the house to meet his son Elliot for lunch, and when Eliot departs mid-meal, Mendelssohn continues eating alone as the snow falls heavily outside. Moments after he leaves the restaurant he is brutally attacked. The detectives working on the case search through the footage of Mendelssohn’s movements, captured by cameras in his home and on the street. Their work is like that of a poet: the search for a random word that, included at the right instance, will suddenly make sense of everything. Told from a multitude of perspectives, in lyrical, hypnotic prose, Thirteen Ways of Looking is a ground-breaking novella of true resonance. Accompanied by three equally powerful stories set in Afghanistan, Galway and London, this is a tribute to humanity’s search for meaning and grace, from a writer at the height of his form, capable of imagining immensities even in the smallest corners of our lives.

A story in this collection has been longlisted for the Sunday Times EFG short story awardAs it was, it was like being set down in the best of poems, carried into a cold landscape, blindfolded, turned around, unblindfolded, forced, then, to invent new ways of seeing. It is a cold day in January when J. Mendelssohn wakes in his Upper East Side apartment. Old and frail, he is entirely reliant on the help of his paid carer, and as he waits for the heating to come on, the clacking of the pipes stirs memories of the past; of his childhood in Lithuania and Dublin, of his distinguished career as a judge, and of his late wife, Eileen. Later he leaves the house to meet his son Elliot for lunch, and when Eliot departs mid-meal, Mendelssohn continues eating alone as the snow falls heavily outside. Moments after he leaves the restaurant he is brutally attacked. The detectives working on the case search through the footage of Mendelssohn's movements, captured by cameras in his home and on the street. Their work is like that of a poet: the search for a random word that, included at the right instance, will suddenly make sense of everything. Told from a multitude of perspectives, in lyrical, hypnotic prose, Thirteen Ways of Looking is a ground-breaking novella of true resonance. Accompanied by three equally powerful stories set in Afghanistan, Galway and London, this is a tribute to humanity's search for meaning and grace, from a writer at the height of his form, capable of imagining immensities even in the smallest corners of our lives.

NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY CHICAGO TRIBUNE AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review - NPR - Los Angeles Times - The Boston Globe - The Seattle Times - The IndependentIn such acclaimed novels as Let the Great World Spin and TransAtlantic, National Book Award-winning author Colum McCann has transfixed readers with his precision, tenderness, and authority. Now, in his first collection of short fiction in more than a decade, McCann charts the territory of chance, and the profound and intimate consequences of even our smallest moments. "As it was, it was like being set down in the best of poems, carried into a cold landscape, blindfolded, turned around, unblindfolded, forced, then, to invent new ways of seeing." In the exuberant title novella, a retired judge reflects on his life's work, unaware as he goes about his daily routines that this particular morning will be his last. In "Sh'khol," a mother spending Christmas alone with her son confronts the unthinkable when he disappears while swimming off the coast near their home in Ireland. In "Treaty," an elderly nun catches a snippet of a news report in which it is revealed that the man who once kidnapped and brutalized her is alive, masquerading as an agent of peace. And in "What Time Is It Now, Where You Are?" a writer constructs a story about a Marine in Afghanistan calling home on New Year's Eve. Deeply personal, subtly subversive, at times harrowing, and indeed funny, yet also full of comfort, Thirteen Ways of Looking is a striking achievement. With unsurpassed empathy for his characters and their inner lives, Colum McCann forges from their stories a profound tribute to our search for meaning and grace. The collection is a rumination on the power of storytelling in a world where language and memory can sometimes falter, but in the end do not fail us, and a contemplation of the healing power of literature. Praise for Thirteen Ways of Looking "Extraordinary . . . incandescent."--Chicago Tribune "The irreducible mystery of human experience ties this small collection together, and in each of these stories McCann explores that theme in some strikingly effective ways. . . . The first story] is as fascinating as it is poignant. . . . The second] captures the mundane and mysterious aspects of shaping characters from the gray clay of words, placing them in realistic settings and breathing life into their lungs. . . . That he makes the story so emotionally compelling is a sign of his genius. . . . The most remarkable piece] is Sh'khol. . . . Caught in the rushing currents of this drama, you know you're reading a little masterpiece."--The Washington Post "McCann is a writer of power and subtlety and beauty. . . . The powerful title story loiters in the mind long after you've read it."--Sarah Lyall, The New York Times " McCann] unspools complex and unforgettable stories in this, his first collection in more than a decade."--The Boston Globe "McCann is a passionate writer whose impulse is always toward a generous understanding of his diverse characters."--The Wall Street Journal "Powerful, profound, and deeply empathetic, McCann's beautifully wrought writing in Thirteen Ways of Looking glides off the page."--BuzzFeed "McCann weaves the magic that made Let the Great World Spin so acclaimed."--The Huffington Post

Taking his inspiration from biographical facts, novelist Colum McCann tells the erotically charged story of the Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev through the cast of those who knew him There is Anna Vasileva, Rudi's first ballet teacher, who rescues her prot g from the stunted life of his provincial town; Yulia, whose sexual and artistic ambitions are thwarted by her Soviet-sanctioned marriage; and Victor, the Venezuelan street hustler, who reveals the lurid underside of the gay celebrity set. Spanning four decades and many worlds, from the horrors of the Second World War to the wild abandon of New York in the eighties, Dancer is peopled by a large cast of characters, obscure and famous: doormen and shoemakers, nurses and translators, Margot Fonteyn, Eric Bruhn and John Lennon. And at the heart of the spectacle stands the artist himself, willful, lustful, and driven by a never-to-be-met need for perfection.

Transatlantisk spenner over kontinenter og århundrer, og forener bemerkelsesverdige menneskeskjebner: De britiske flygerne John Alcock og Arthur Brown og deres første transatlantiske flyvning, den amerikanske slaven Frederick Douglass, som reiser til Irland på midten av 1800-tallet for å samle støtte til slavenes sak, og den amerikanske senatoren George Mitchell som var Clintons sendebut til Nord-Irland og en av arkitektene bak fredsprosessen på nittitallet. Disse tre historiene veves sammen med en fiktiv fortelling om fire generasjoners kvinner. Lily Duggan hører Douglass tale under hans besøk i Irland, og inspireres til å emigrere til Amerika. Dette får ikke bare store konsekvenser for hennes eget liv, men også for drømmene og ambisjonene hos hennes kvinnelige etterkommere

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE - NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY KIRKUS REVIEWS In the National Book Award-winning Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann thrilled readers with a marvelous high-wire act of fiction that The New York Times Book Review called "an emotional tour de force." Now McCann demonstrates once again why he is one of the most acclaimed and essential authors of his generation with a soaring novel that spans continents, leaps centuries, and unites a cast of deftly rendered characters, both real and imagined. Newfoundland, 1919. Two aviators--Jack Alcock and Arthur Brown--set course for Ireland as they attempt the first nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean, placing their trust in a modified bomber to heal the wounds of the Great War. Dublin, 1845 and '46. On an international lecture tour in support of his subversive autobiography, Frederick Douglass finds the Irish people sympathetic to the abolitionist cause--despite the fact that, as famine ravages the countryside, the poor suffer from hardships that are astonishing even to an American slave. New York, 1998. Leaving behind a young wife and newborn child, Senator George Mitchell departs for Belfast, where it has fallen to him, the son of an Irish-American father and a Lebanese mother, to shepherd Northern Ireland's notoriously bitter and volatile peace talks to an uncertain conclusion. These three iconic crossings are connected by a series of remarkable women whose personal stories are caught up in the swells of history. Beginning with Irish housemaid Lily Duggan, who crosses paths with Frederick Douglass, the novel follows her daughter and granddaughter, Emily and Lottie, and culminates in the present-day story of Hannah Carson, in whom all the hopes and failures of previous generations live on. From the loughs of Ireland to the flatlands of Missouri and the windswept coast of Newfoundland, their journeys mirror the progress and shape of history. They each learn that even the most unassuming moments of grace have a way of rippling through time, space, and memory. The most mature work yet from an incomparable storyteller, TransAtlantic is a profound meditation on identity and history in a wide world that grows somehow smaller and more wondrous with each passing year. Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader's Circle for author chats and more. "A dazzlingly talented author's latest high-wire act . . . Reminiscent of the finest work of Michael Ondaatje and Michael Cunningham, TransAtlantic is Colum McCann's most penetrating novel yet."--O: The Oprah Magazine "One of the greatest pleasures of TransAtlantic is how provisional it makes history feel, how intimate, and intensely real. . . . Here is the uncanny thing McCann finds again and again about the miraculous: that it is inseparable from the everyday."--The Boston Globe "Ingenious . . . The intricate connections McCann] has crafted between the stories of his women and our men seem] written in air, in water, and--given that his subject is the confluence of Irish and American history--in blood."--Esquire "Another sweeping, beautifully constructed tapestry of life . . . Reading McCann is a rare joy."--The Seattle Times "Entrancing . . . McCann folds his epic meticulously into this relatively slim volume like an accordion; each pleat holds music--elation and sorrow."--The Denver Post

SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL IMPAC DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD 2015LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2013SHORTLISTED FOR THE IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2013'It is, simply, perfect' Irish Examiner'Majestic' Sunday Times'Quite simply one of the best, most sustained pieces of fiction I’ve read in some time' Independent____________________In 1919 Emily Ehrlich watches as two young airmen, Alcock and Brown, emerge from the carnage of World War One to pilot the very first non-stop transatlantic flight from Newfoundland to the west of Ireland. In 1845 Frederick Douglass, a black American slave, lands in Ireland to champion ideas of democracy and freedom, only to find a famine unfurling at his feet. And in 1998 Senator George Mitchell criss-crosses the ocean in search of an elusive Irish peace. Stitching these stories intricately together, Colum McCann sets out to explore the fine line between what is real and what is imagined, and the tangled skein of connections that make up our lives.

Fire and Forget includes the title story from Redeployment by Phil Klay, 2014 National Book Award Winner in FictionThese stories aren't pretty and they aren't for the faint of heart. They are realistic, haunting and shocking. And they are all unforgettable. Television reports, movies, newspapers and blogs about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have offered images of the fighting there. But this collection offers voices- powerful voices, telling the kind of truth that only fiction can offer. What makes the collection so remarkable is that all of these stories are written by those who were there, or waited for them at home. The anthology, which features a Foreword by National Book Award winner Colum McCann, includes the best voices of the wars' generation: award-winning author Phil Klay's Redeployment" Brian Turner, whose poem Hurt Locker" was the movie's inspiration Colby Buzzell, whose book My War resonates with countless veterans Siobhan Fallon, whose book You Know When the Men Are Gone echoes the joy and pain of the spouses left behind Matt Gallagher, whose book Kaboom captures the hilarity and horror of the modern military experience and ten others.

En kald vinterdag i en liten russisk by. En seksårig gutt danser for de sårede soldatene som har kommet hjem fra andre verdenskrig. Han er ustø, holder på å falle, likevel dirrer den lille forestillingen av en intensitet som for et øyeblikk får tilskuerne til å glemme smertene. Tretti år senere har Rudolf Nurejev danset i Moskva, Paris, London, New York. Han har opptrådt for president Kennedy, Marlene Dietrich og Mick Jagger. Han lever på champagne og kokain, elskerne står i kø i kulissene, tre stykker venter i badekaret. Hjemme i Russland er han dømt til 7 års straffarbeid for landssvik. Der får moren, faren og søsteren kjenne medaljens bakside.

At the turn of the twentieth century, Nathan Walker comes to New York City to take the most dangerous job in the country: digging the tunnel far beneath the Hudson that will carry trains from Brooklyn to Manhattan. In the bowels of the riverbed, the workers - black, white, Irish and Italian - dig together, the darkness erasing all differences. But above ground, the men keep their distance until a dramatic accident on a bitter winter's day welds a bond between Walker and his fellow workers that will both bless and curse three generations. Almost ninety years later, Treefrog stumbles on the same tunnels and sets about creating a home amongst the drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes and petty criminals that comprise the forgotten homeless community.

It's New York, August 1974: a man is walking in the sky. Between the newly built Twin Towers, the man twirls through the air. Far below, the lives of complete strangers spin towards each other: Corrigan, a radical Irish monk working in the Bronx; Claire, a delicate Upper East Side housewife reeling from the death of her son; Lara, a drug-addled young artist; Gloria, solid and proud despite decades of hardship; Tillie, a hooker who used to dream of a better life; and Jazzlyn, her beautiful daughter raised on promises that reach beyond the skyline of New York. In the shadow of one reckless and beautiful act, these disparate lives will collide, and be transformed for ever.

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER - Colum McCann's beloved novel inspired by Philippe Petit's daring high-wire stunt, which is also depicted in the film The Walk starring Joseph Gordon-LevittIn the dawning light of a late-summer morning, the people of lower Manhattan stand hushed, staring up in disbelief at the Twin Towers. It is August 1974, and a mysterious tightrope walker is running, dancing, leaping between the towers, suspended a quarter mile above the ground. In the streets below, a slew of ordinary lives become extraordinary in bestselling novelist Colum McCann's stunningly intricate portrait of a city and its people. Let the Great World Spin is the critically acclaimed author's most ambitious novel yet: a dazzlingly rich vision of the pain, loveliness, mystery, and promise of New York City in the 1970s. Corrigan, a radical young Irish monk, struggles with his own demons as he lives among the prostitutes in the middle of the burning Bronx. A group of mothers gather in a Park Avenue apartment to mourn their sons who died in Vietnam, only to discover just how much divides them even in grief. A young artist finds herself at the scene of a hit-and-run that sends her own life careening sideways. Tillie, a thirty-eight-year-old grandmother, turns tricks alongside her teenage daughter, determined not only to take care of her family but to prove her own worth. Elegantly weaving together these and other seemingly disparate lives, McCann's powerful allegory comes alive in the unforgettable voices of the city's people, unexpectedly drawn together by hope, beauty, and the "artistic crime of the century." A sweeping and radical social novel, Let the Great World Spin captures the spirit of America in a time of transition, extraordinary promise, and, in hindsight, heartbreaking innocence. Hailed as a "fiercely original talent" (San Francisco Chronicle), award-winning novelist McCann has delivered a triumphantly American masterpiece that awakens in us a sense of what the novel can achieve, confront, and even heal. Praise for Let the Great World Spin"This is a gorgeous book, multilayered and deeply felt, and it's a damned lot of fun to read, too. Leave it to an Irishman to write one of the greatest-ever novels about New York. There's so much passion and humor and pure lifeforce on every page of Let the Great World Spin that you'll find yourself giddy, dizzy, overwhelmed."--Dave Eggers"Stunning . . . an] elegiac glimpse of hope . . . It's a novel rooted firmly in time and place. It vividly captures New York at its worst and best. But it transcends all that. In the end, it's a novel about families--the ones we're born into and the ones we make for ourselves."--USA Today "The first great 9/11 novel . . . We are all dancing on the wire of history, and even on solid ground we breathe the thinnest of air."--Esquire "Mesmerizing . . . a Joycean look at the lives of New Yorkers changed by a single act on a single day . . . Colum McCann's marvelously rich novel . . . weaves a portrait of a city and a moment, dizzyingly satisfying to read and difficult to put down."--The Seattle Times "Vibrantly whole . . . With a series of spare, gorgeously wrought vignettes, Colum McCann brings 1970s New York to life. . . . And as always, McCann's heart-stoppingly simple descriptions wow."--Entertainment Weekly "An act of pure bravado, dizzying proof that to keep your balance you need to know how to fall."--O: The Oprah Magazine

? Ein ganz großartiges Buch: frei, grausam, wild, schön, ernst.? (Elke Heidenreich)
 
 Zoli ist eine junge, starke und außergewöhnliche Frau vom Volk der Roma. Sie stammt aus Bratislava und hat in den Wäldern der Umgebung den Vernichtungsfeldzug der Deutschen gegen ihre Leute überlebt. Als sie Jahre später die traditionellen Gesänge ihres Volkes veröffentlichen will, wird sie vom sozialistischen Regime unter Druck gesetzt. Auch die Sippe und ihr Geliebter verstoßen sie. Zoli flieht in den Westen ? allein und mittellos, aber voller Hoffnung, doch noch irgendwo ihr Glück zu finden.
 
 ? Ein großartiges Buch und eine wunderbare Geschichte.? (Roddy Doyle)

From the National Book Award-winning author of Let the Great World Spin, this haunting novel is an examination of intimacy and betrayal in a community rarely captured so vibrantly in contemporary literature. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR Zoli Novotna, a young woman raised in the traveling Gypsy tradition, is a poet by accident as much as desire. As 1930s fascism spreads over Czechoslovakia, Zoli and her grandfather flee to join a clan of fellow Romani harpists. Sharpened by the world of books, which is often frowned upon in the Romani tradition, Zoli becomes the poster girl for a brave new world. As she shapes the ancient songs to her times, she finds her gift embraced by the Gypsy people and savored by a young English expatriate, Stephen Swann. But Zoli soon finds that when she falls she cannot fall halfway-neither in love nor in politics. While Zoli's fame and poetic skills deepen, the ruling Communists begin to use her for their own favor. Cast out from her family, Zoli abandons her past to journey to the West, in a novel that spans the 20th century and travels the breadth of Europe. Colum McCann has created a sensuous novel about exile, belonging and survival, based loosely on the true story of the Romani poet Papusza. It spans the twentieth century and travels the breadth of Europe. In the tradition of Steinbeck, Coetzee, and Ondaatje, McCann finds the art inherent in social and political history, while vividly depicting how far one gifted woman must journey to find where she belongs. Praise for Zoli "Very powerful . . . rich in vivid detail . . . the prose is just plain gorgeous. . . . McCann allows us to enter a world few of us know anything about."--San Francisco Chronicle " A] beautifully written novel] loosely based on the life of the Polish Gypsy poet 'Papusza, ' who lived throughout most of the twentieth century. . . . Beautifully conceived, wonderfully told, the story is proof of an indomitable spirit. The elusive character of Zoli, the brilliang artist, is unforgettable."--The Washington Post Book World "McCann is a writer of large and driving vision. . . . Zoli] contains passages of stunning lyricism and sharp ironic force."--The New York Times "Rich and sensuous . . . McCann's research and lustrous prose bring Zoli vibrantly alive."--Entertainment Weekly

Rudolf Nurejew galt als einer der größten Tänzer aller Zeiten. McCann begibt sich in seinem Roman auf die Spuren eines Künstlerlebens. Aus der Sicht der Wegbegleiter des Genies erzählt, entsteht ein schillerndes Kaleidoskop, das von Ost und West, Partyleben und Künstlereinsamkeit, Genialität, Trieb und Tod erzählt.

The short fiction of Colum McCann documents a dizzying cast of characters in exile, loss, love, and displacement. There is the worn boxing champion who steals clothes from a New Orleans laundromat, the rumored survivor of Hiroshima who emigrates to the tranquil coast of Western Ireland, the Irishwoman who journeys through America in search of silence and solitude. But what is found in these stories, and discovered by these characters, is the astonishing poetry and peace found in the mundane: a memory, a scent on the wind, the grace in the curve of a street. Fishing the Sloe-Black River is a work of pure augury, of the channeling and re-spoken lives of people exposed to the beauty of the everyday.