Colum McCann

Colum McCann, born February 28, 1965 is an Irish writer of literary fiction. He is a Professor of Contemporary Literature at European Graduate School and Professor of Fiction at CUNY Hunter College's Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing with fellow novelists Peter Carey, twice winner of the Man Booker Prize, and Nathan Englander.

McCann's fiction has been published in 30 languages. His novels include Songdogs, This Side of Brightness, Dancer, Zoli and Let the Great World Spin. He has written for numerous newspapers and periodicals, including The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, GQ, The Times, The Irish Times, Granta, and La Repubblica. His short story "Everything in this Country Must" was made into a short film directed by Gary McKendry. It was nominated for an Academy Award in 2005.

In 2003 McCann was named Esquire Magazine's "Best and Brightest" young novelist. He has also been awarded a Pushcart Prize, the Rooney Prize, the Irish Novel of the Year Award and the 2002 Ireland Fund of Monaco Princess Grace Memorial Literary Award. He was recently inducted into the Hennessy Hall of Fame.

His novel Let the Great World Spin (2009), uses the true story of Philippe Petit as a "pull-through metaphor," and "weaves together a powerful allegory of 9/11. The novel has won numerous honours, notably the National Book Award and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. J. J. Abrams has optioned the film rights and has promised to work with McCann on the screenplay. In 2010, McCann and musician Joe Hurley cowrote a song-cycle – “The House That Horse Built (Let the Great World Spin)” -- based on the character of Tillie.

Biography

McCann was born in Dublin in 1965 and began his career as a reporter for The Irish Press. He arrived in the United States with the purpose of writing the Great American Novel. In 1986 he took a bicycle tour across North America and then worked as a wilderness guide in a program for juvenile delinquents in Texas. In 1992 he married Allison Hawke and moved to Japan, where the McCanns lived for a year and a half. He and his wife then moved to New York where they currently reside with their three children, Isabella, John Michael, and Christian.

On June 16, 2009, McCann published a Bloomsday remembrance of his long-deceased grandfather, whom he met only once, and of finding him again in the pages of James Joyce's Ulysses.

McCann holds a BA from the University of Texas.

On 15 June 2011, it was announced that Colum McCann had won the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the most expensive literat award in the world. It was only the second time that an author of Irish origin had won the award in its history. McCann won the award for his novel Let the Great World Spin. The judging panel called it a "remarkable literary work  a genuinely 21st century novel that speaks to its time but is not enslaved by it", noting the book's opening pages in which "the people of New York city stand breathless and overwhelmed as a great artist dazzles them in a realm that seemed impossible until that moment; Colum McCann does the same thing in this novel, leaving the reader just as stunned as the New Yorkers, just as moved and just as grateful.