Colm Tóibín – Imprint: Writer in Profile

Irish novelist, short story writer and journalist Colm Tóibín talks to Theo Dorgan about his early childhood in Enniscorthy, his early poetry writing and studying at University College Dublin. Tóibín lived in Barcelona between 1975 and 1978 and explains how this experience of Spanish life, gothic architecture, and the death of Franco shaped his work. When he returned to Ireland, he worked as a journalist and editor of Magill recalling the immense drive of Irish journalism at the time and his experience working with Vincent Browne, Mary Rafferty and Fintan O’Toole. He describes the act of writing as a pleasant ‘ordeal’ and Dorgan asks about the political undertones and autobiographical nature of his work.

Imprint, a literature review programme, and its sister show Imprint: Writer in Profile screened on RTÉ1 for three seasons. Both were presented by Irish poet, writer and lecturer Theo Dorgan. Over the course of the Writer in Profile series Dorgan conducted extended, in-depth interviews with a wide range of Irish and international writers including Colm Tóibín, Bernard MacLaverty, Jennifer Johnston, Joseph O’Connor, Michael Longley, Doris Lessing, John Montague, Eavan Boland, Gore Vidal, Richard Ford and Margaret Atwood. This episode is part of The Loopline Collection Volume 1. To watch more of the collection click here.