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Colum McCann

Goodreads author profile

born

January 01, 1965 in Ireland

gender

male

website

http://www.colummccann.com

genre

Literature & Fiction, Biographies & Memoirs

member since

February 2009

About this author

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Colum McCann is the author of two collections of short stories and four novels, including "This Side of Brightness,""Dancer" and “Zoli,” all of which were international best-sellers. His newest novel “Let the Great World Spin” will come out in 2009. His fiction has been published in 26 languages and has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, GQ, Paris Review and other places. He has written for numerous publications including The Irish Times, Die Zeit, La Republicca, Paris Match, The New York Times, the Guardian and the Independent.

In 2003 Colum was named Esquire magazine's "Writer of the Year." Other awards and honors include a Pushcart Prize, the Rooney Prize, the Irish Independent Hughes and Hughes/Sunday Independent Novel of...more Colum McCann is the author of two collections of short stories and four novels, including "This Side of Brightness,""Dancer" and “Zoli,” all of which were international best-sellers. His newest novel “Let the Great World Spin” will come out in 2009. His fiction has been published in 26 languages and has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, GQ, Paris Review and other places. He has written for numerous publications including The Irish Times, Die Zeit, La Republicca, Paris Match, The New York Times, the Guardian and the Independent.

In 2003 Colum was named Esquire magazine's "Writer of the Year." Other awards and honors include a Pushcart Prize, the Rooney Prize, the Irish Independent Hughes and Hughes/Sunday Independent Novel of the Year 2003, and the 2002 Ireland Fund of Monaco Princess Grace Memorial Literary Award. He was recently inducted into the Hennessy Hall of Fame for Irish Literature.

His short film "Everything in this Country Must," directed by Gary McKendry, was nominated for an Academy Award Oscar in 2005.

Colum was born in Dublin in 1965 and began his career as a journalist in The Irish Press. In the early 1980's he took a bicycle across North America and then worked as a wilderness guide in a program for juvenile delinquents in Texas. After a year and a half in Japan, he and his wife Allison moved to New York where they currently live with their three children, Isabella, John Michael and Christian.

Colum teaches in Hunter College in New York, in the Creative Writing program, with fellow novelists Peter Carey and Nathan Englander.

Colum has completed his new novel, "Let the Great World Spin." It is scheduled for release in the U.S on June 23 rd, 2009. An extract was published in the Paris Review in fall 2008. The British and Irish release will be in August, while European publishers will quickly follow up – in what amounts to an unprecedented international publication – in September 2009.

The novel begins in August 1974 as a tightrope walker makes his way through the dawn light across the World Trade Center towers, stunning thousands of watchers below. Using the true story of Philippe Petit as a pull-through metaphor, McCann crafts a portrait of the city and a people. There’s Corrigan, a radical young Irish monk, who struggles with his own demons as he lives among the prostitutes in the burning Bronx. A group of mothers gather in a Park Avenue apartment to mourn the sons who died in Vietnam – they soon discover how much divides them even in their grief. Further uptown, Tillie, a 38-year-old grandmother, turns tricks alongside her teenaged daughter, determined not only to take care of her “babies” but to prove her own worth.

Elegantly weaving together these and other seemingly disparate lives, McCann’s powerful allegory of 9/11 comes alive in the unforgettable voices of the city’s people, unexpectedly drawn together by hope, beauty, and the tightrope walker’s “artistic crime of the century.” McCann’s most ambitious work to date, Let the Great World Spin has already been described as a triumphant American novel.

Let the Great World Spin will be published June 30th. Advance copies will be available here on GoodReads!!!!

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Colum McCann's Blog

June ... and a new book

Hello to Readers ...
I'm gearing up for the launch of "Let the Great World Spin" (coming from Random House, June 23) and invite you all to visit my website colummccann.com where I'm going to be posting tour dates and so on.
Quite honestly, I'm nervous and charged at the same time.
I'll spend most of July in the U.S, then in France in August, Ireland and England in early September, France again a... read more »

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Books by Colum McCann

Average rating: 3.88 · 30,580 ratings · 5,359 reviews · 21 distinct works

	Let the Great World Spin 3.89 avg rating — 27,417 ratings — published 2009 — 39 editions	My rating:
	Zoli 3.63 avg rating — 913 ratings — published 2007 — 17 editions	My rating:
	Dancer 3.86 avg rating — 892 ratings — published 2003 — 19 editions	My rating:
	This Side of Brightness 3.85 avg rating — 670 ratings — published 1998 — 21 editions	My rating:
	Everything in This Country Must 3.92 avg rating — 225 ratings — published 2000 — 9 editions	My rating:
	Songdogs 3.79 avg rating — 173 ratings — published 1995 — 7 editions	My rating:
	Fishing the Sloe-Black River 3.96 avg rating — 128 ratings — published 1984 — 13 editions	My rating:
	Hungerstreik 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating	My rating:
	Tancerz 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2004	My rating:
	Best European Fiction 2011 by Aleksandar Hemon (Editor), Colum McCann (Goodreads Author) (Preface) 3.85 avg rating — 66 ratings — published 2010 — 3 editions	My rating:

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Colum's Recent Updates

Colum McCann is now friends with Andrew
Sep 05, 2009 08:25am
Colum McCann gave to: Julius Winsome: A Novel by Gerard Donovan	My rating:
Apr 08, 2009 09:03am
Colum McCann gave to: When Skateboards Will Be Free: A Memoir of a Political Childhood by Saïd Sayrafiezadeh	My rating:
Mar 20, 2009 09:43am
Colum McCann gave to: Hope & Other Dangerous Pursuits by Laila Lalami (Goodreads Author)	My rating:
Mar 14, 2009 06:15am
Colum McCann gave to: That They May Face The Rising Sun by John McGahern	My rating:
Mar 14, 2009 06:02am
Colum McCann gave to: Paula Spencer by Roddy Doyle	My rating:
Mar 14, 2009 06:01am
Colum McCann said "yes" to attending the event: Puck Fair Literary Brunch for Saint Patricks Day, Hosted by Colum McCann date: March 15, 2009 01:00PM location: Puck Fair, Lafayette Street, New York, The United States description: A literary brunch. Irish and American writers reading from their favourite Irish writers (dead and alive!) for Saint Patrick's Day. $15 but a full brunch and drink is included. Previous years readers include Frank McCourt, Richard Price, Thomas Kelly, Gerard Donovan
Mar 14, 2009 05:56am
Colum McCann gave to: Fall of Frost: A Novel by Brian Hall	My rating:
Mar 14, 2009 05:50am
Colum McCann gave to: The Summer He Didn't Die by Jim Harrison	My rating:
Mar 14, 2009 05:49am
Colum McCann gave to: Braided Creek by Jim Harrison	My rating:
Mar 14, 2009 05:49am

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Quotes by Colum McCann

“Some people think love is the end of the road, and if you're lucky enough to find it, you stay there. Other people say it just becomes a cliff you drive off, but most people who've been around awhile know it's just a thing that changes day by day, and depending on how much you fight for it, you get it, or you hold on to it, or you lose it, but sometimes it's never even there in the first place.”
― Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin

74 people liked it

“The world spins. We stumble on. It is enough.”
― Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin

73 people liked it

“The thing about love is that we come alive in bodies not our own.”
― Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin

63 people liked it

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Polls

The 2009 Goodreads Choice Awards: FICTION

The Help by Kathryn Stockett (Goodreads Author)

1160 votes 17.1%

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

696 votes 10.2%

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger (Goodreads Author)

334 votes 4.9%

Shanghai Girls A Novel by Lisa See (Goodreads Author)

328 votes 4.8%

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

315 votes 4.6%

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

303 votes 4.5%

The White Queen by Philippa Gregory

286 votes 4.2%

Fool A Novel by Christopher Moore

246 votes 3.6%

The Magicians by Lev Grossman (Goodreads Author)

237 votes 3.5%

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

232 votes 3.4%

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet A Novel by Jamie Ford (Goodreads Author)

230 votes 3.4%

Juliet, Naked A Novel by Nick Hornby

214 votes 3.2%

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

198 votes 2.9%

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

151 votes 2.2%

Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk

150 votes 2.2%

The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman

148 votes 2.2%

South of Broad by Pat Conroy

146 votes 2.1%

This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper

140 votes 2.1%

Let the Great World Spin A Novel by Colum McCann (Goodreads Author)

138 votes 2.0%

Little Bee by Chris Cleave

132 votes 1.9%

Brooklyn A Novel by Colm Tóibín

124 votes 1.8%

The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt

118 votes 1.7%

Drood by Dan Simmons

112 votes 1.6%

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

106 votes 1.6%

A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore

103 votes 1.5%

The Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf (Goodreads Author)

91 votes 1.3%

That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo

83 votes 1.2%

The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet by Reif Larsen

74 votes 1.1%

Await Your Reply A Novel by Dan Chaon (Goodreads Author)

71 votes 1.0%

The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker

64 votes 0.9%

The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister (Goodreads Author)

62 votes 0.9%

6792 total votes

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Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
The Book Addicts!: National Book Award 2009	6	106	Nov 23, 2009 02:30pm
Between the Lines: April 2010 - Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann	5	53	May 09, 2010 12:46pm
Novel Ladies: Group Read Nominations - June 2010	51	43	May 23, 2010 06:07am
Novel Ladies: Group Read Nominations - July 2010	46	39	Jun 22, 2010 11:54pm
Challenge: 50 Books: David's 50 books in 2010	8	59	Jul 31, 2010 07:07pm
Between the Lines: Beth K's 2010 Challenge	52	98	Sep 07, 2010 06:44am
The Book Addicts!: Picking Our October Books!	81	254	Sep 08, 2010 05:56am
Barnes & Nobl...: Nominations for Oct 2010	16	55	Sep 23, 2010 10:03am
The Next Best Boo...: September's Group Reads ARE.....	80	320	Sep 23, 2010 10:51am
Buddy Reads: Let The Great World Spin (5/1/10)	24	24	Oct 15, 2010 06:58pm

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