Colum McCann
Novelist

Biography

Colum McCann is the author of two collections of short stories and three novels, including "This Side of Brightness" and "Dancer," both of which were international best-sellers. His fiction has been published in 26 languages and has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, GQ 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. He also has written a weekly column for RTE's "Round Midnight" show and Village magazine in Dublin.

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 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.

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

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

His most recent novel, "Zoli," a story of a Gypsy poet and intellectual, was recently published in England, Ireland, Germany and the United States to great acclaim. It is already an international bestseller. It will be published in 20 languages.

Colum is currently working on a new novel, tentatively titled Utopia 74, as well as several screenplays.

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