Colum McCann Knihy

On a cold January day, J. Mendelssohn awakens in his Upper East Side apartment, frail and dependent on his carer. As he waits for the heating to kick in, the clacking pipes evoke memories of his childhood in Lithuania and Dublin, his esteemed career as a judge, and his late wife, Eileen. He later meets his son Elliot for lunch, but when Elliot leaves mid-meal, Mendelssohn finds himself dining alone as heavy snow falls outside. Shortly after leaving the restaurant, he suffers a brutal attack. Detectives investigate the incident, sifting through surveillance footage of Mendelssohn's movements, akin to a poet searching for the perfect word that will illuminate the entire narrative. The story unfolds through multiple perspectives, employing lyrical and hypnotic prose. This groundbreaking novella resonates deeply, complemented by three powerful stories set in Afghanistan, Galway, and London. It serves as a tribute to humanity's quest for meaning and grace, showcasing a writer at the peak of his craft, who can envision vastness even within the smallest details of life.

As a man traverses the gap between the Twin Towers in New York city on August, 1974, the lives of five disparate individuals spin together and are changed, irrevocably and profoundly

The novel begins in Czechoslovakia in the early 1930s when Zoli, a young Roma girl, is six years old. The fascist Hlinka guards had driven most of her people out onto the frozen lake and forced them to stay there until the spring, when the ice cracked and everyone drowned - Zoli's parents, brothers and sisters. Now she and her grandfather head off in search of a 'company'. Zoli teaches herself to read and write and becomes a singer, a privileged position in a gypsy company as they are viewed as the guardians of gypsy tradition. But Zoli is different because she secretly writes down some of her songs. With the rise of the Nazis, the suppression of the gypsies intensifies. The war ends when Zoli is 16 and with the spread of socialism, the Roma are suddenly regarded as 'comrades' again. Zoli meets Stephen Swann, a man she will have a passionate affair with, but who will also betray her. He persuades Zoli to publish some of her work. But when the government try to use Zoli to help them in their plan to 'settle' gypsies, her community turns against her. They condemn her to 'Pollution for Life', which means she is exiled forever. She begins a journey that will eventually lead her to Italy and a new life. Zoli is based very loosely on the true story of the Gypsy poet, Papsuza, who was sentenced to a Life of Pollution by her fellow Roma when a Polish intellectual published her poems.

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.

'An extraordinary story of grace, forgiveness and moral courage' Patrick Radden KeefeA 2024 HIGHLIGHT IN THE OBSERVER, GUARDIAN AND IRISH TIMESThe English language has no specific word for the parent that has lost a child. There exist words for orphan, widow and widower, but there is no word that captures and conveys this tragic type of loss. It has been eleven years since Diane Foley's son, the American journalist James Foley, was kidnapped in northern Syria, and nearly ten since that day in August 2014 when she would learn that he had been murdered by ISIS in a public beheading that would ricochet in video around the world. A whole decade. Time rushes past. And yet, for Diane, that moment is unending. In American Mother, legendary author Colum McCann tells Diane's story as she recalls the months of his captivity, the efforts made to bring him home and the days following his death, in which Diane came face to face with one of the men responsible for her son's kidnapping and torture. A testament to the power of radical empathy and moral courage, American Mother takes us inside one woman's extraordinary journey to find connection in a world torn asunder, and to fight for others as a way to keep her son's memory alive.

With unreliable memories and scraps of photographs as his only clues, Conor Lyons follows in the tracks of his father, a rootless photographer, as he moved from war-torn Spain, to the barren plains of Mexico, where he met and married Conor's mother, to the American West, and finally back to Ireland, where the marriage and the story reach their heartrending climax. As the narratives of Conor's quest and his parents' lives twine and untwine, Collum McCann creates a mesmerizing evocation of the gulf between memory and imagination, love and loss, past and present.

'McCann returns to Ireland with this collection, turning his measured gaze and incisive prose to the country's recent history with devastating effect' Maggie O'Farrell 'McCann once again shows why he is one of the best writers in the world ... Deeply moving and powerfully written, these are likely to become classics' Big Issue ___________________ One powerful novella, with two thematically linked short stories on either side of it, forms the basis of Everything in This Country Must. Although these are stories about Ireland and the Troubles, they have an almost mythical rather than a political feel. In the title story, four young soldiers help a farmer and his daughter free their horse from a stream in flood, unable to understand that their help will never be anything but an insult. In the novella, Hunger Strike, a young boy and his mother flee to Galway as the boy's uncle succumbs to a hunger strike in a Derry gaol. In Wood, a ten-year-old boy is asked by his mother to make poles for the marching season. ___________________ 'Colum McCann's stories are brooding, meditative and lyrically controlled to that delicate point where the emotion within them intensifies with each succeeding reading and recognition. The political turmoil of Northern Ireland finds here an answering, subtly respondent voice - wonderfully skilled and deeply felt' Seamus Deane

Set in Ireland and America, the twelve gems in this award-winning volume are tales of exile, loss, love, and displacement. The characters--oddballs and outcasts, misfits and travelers--are all in search of a way back home, or a way to leave it--from the anorexic nun who ends her days in a Long Island convent hospital to the weathered boxing champ fond of stealing clothes from a New Orleans laundromat..

"A Russian peasant who became an international legend, a Cold War exile who inspired the adoration of millions, an artist whose name was a byword for genius, sex, and excess. The magnificence of Rudolf Nureyev's life and work is known, but now Colum McCann reinvents this figure through the light he shed on the lives of those who knew him." Boldly embellishing the biographical facts, McCann tells the story through a chorus of voices. There is Anna Vasileva, Rudi's first ballet teacher, who, banished from St. Petersburg, rescues her preternaturally talented protege from the stunted life of his town; Yulia, whose sexual and artistic ambitions are thwarted by her Soviet-sanctioned marriage; Victor, a decadent Venezuelan, who revels in the hedonism of the gay celebrity set; Odile, the legendary cook, who finds love at middle age while feeding the great and their hangers-on. Spanning four decades and many worlds, from the killing fields of World War II to the wild abandon of New York's gaudy eighties, Dancer is peopled by a large cast of characters, obscure and famous, real and imagined.

Emily watches as two airmen emerge from the carnage of World War One to pilot the first non-stop transatlantic flight. Among the mail being carried on the aircraft is a letter which will not be opened for almost 100 years. Senator George Mitchell criss-crosses the ocean in search of an elusive peace.

At the turn of the century, New York's sandhogs burrowed beneath the East River, digging the tunnels that would link Brooklyn to Manhattan; many decades later, those same tunnels offer refuge to the desperate and homeless. Spanning 70 years, McCann's acclaimed novel tells the story of three generations bound to the tunnels by ill-fated loves, unintended crimes, and social taboos.

Exploring themes of rupture and repair in the digital age, this novel takes readers on a journey into a concealed underwater world. The narrative promises a gripping experience, showcasing the author's signature storytelling style, renowned from previous bestselling works. Through rich character development and intricate plotlines, the story invites reflection on modern connections and the depths of human experience.

In a daring tour de force, Colum McCann takes on the most intractable of conflicts: The Troubles in Northern Ireland In this, his fourth book, McCann, a writer of fierce originality and haunting lyricism, turns to the Troubles and reveals, as only fiction writers can, the reverberations of political tragedy in the most intimate lives of men and women, parents and children. In the title story, a teenage girl must choose between allegiance to her Catholic father and gratitude to the British soldiers who have saved the family's horse. The young hero of "Hunger Strike," a novella, tries to replicate the experience of his uncle, an IRA prisoner on hunger strike. And in "Wood," a small boy does his part for the Protestant marches, concealing his involvement from his blind father. Writing in a new form, but with the skill and force and sparkling poetry that have brought him international acclaim, Colum McCann has delivered masterful, memorable short fiction. ©2008 Colum McCann (P)2010 Audible, Inc.

Colum McCann wollte seine Geschichte mit dem Meer schreiben, doch jedes Mal, wenn er sich daran machte, blieb das Blatt vor ihm weiß. Er war sich stets sicher, dass es sie gab, diese seine Geschichte mit dem Meer, doch immer wieder entglitt sie ihm. Bis er eines Tages begriff, dass er sie bereits geschrieben hatte: „Jedes Mal, wenn ich an diese Geschichte dachte, kehrte ich in Gedanken zu der kleinen Stadt in Galway zurück, die ich vor vielen Jahren für meine Erzählung Hungerstreik erfunden habe.“ Der Schlüssel zu der Geschichte, die Colum McCann nie aufschreiben konnte, liegt in einer anderen Geschichte verborgen. Dieses Buch erzählt sie beide.

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.

À l’heure où Donald Trump quitte la Maison Blanche et que les États-Unis entrent dans une nouvelle ère, America tire sa révérence avec un dernier numéro agrémenté pour l’occasion d’un poster inédit et d’une vingtaine de pages supplémentaires. Dans ce 16ème opus, retrouvez d’abord un grand entretien avec l’écrivain irlando-américain Colum McCann qui nous avait fait l’honneur de participer au premier numéro. Persuadé du rôle déterminant de la littérature, l’auteur livre ses inquiétudes nouvelles mais aussi ses espoirs face à l’inconnue de ces années post-Trump. Alors que Joe Biden vient d’être élu 46ème président, America s’interroge sur l’avenir de l’Amérique à travers des portraits de figures démocrates, un reportage sur le devenir du trumpisme ou encore un essai sur les GAFA, les autres maitres du pays. Autre temps forts de ce numéro, un conte fantastique inédit de la star de la BD Emil Ferris inspiré de la trouble période du confinement, une nouvelle de l’immense écrivain Ernest Hemingway, encore jamais publiée en France, ainsi que le parti pris de l’auteure Rachel Kushner qui imagine la conclusion minable de la relation entre le fils de Donald Trump et sa petite amie, métaphore du désamour du pays pour la défaite en hommage au film « Shame ».

Reportagen schickt die besten Autorinnen und Autoren rund um den Globus. Für Geschichten, die bleiben.In dieser Ausgabe:- Miss Marple aus Zürich. Sie beschattet Erbschleicher, Fremdgänger, Blaumacher. Unterwegs mit einerPrivatdetektivin im mondänen Seefeld. Von Juliane Schiemenz.- Albtraum auf 80m2. Feindliche Übernahme: Die Untermieterin Katherine Gladstone macht sich in einem New Yorker Apartment breit. Von Bridget Read- Der Ehefrau ausgeliefert. Ein Schlaganfall lässt Andrzej Grzela verstummen. Nur seine Augen können noch sprechen. Von Malgorzata Smolak.- Ein Haus in Palästina. Zwischen brennenden Autoreifen, Wasserwerfern und Checkpoints: Dar Jacir, eine Oase der Kunst. Von Colum McCann- Hier schweigt Ihr Kapitän. Nicht einmal das Swissair-Grounding veränderte das Leben von Langstreckenpilot Alex Borer so stark wie Corona. Von Christoph Keller- Die historische Reportage: Mütter Courage, 1995. Von Sonia Seymour Mikich.

S’khol – so nennt man im Hebräischen Eltern, die ihr Kind verloren haben. Im Deutschen gibt es dafür kein Wort. Rebecca ist Übersetzerin aus dem Hebräischen. Ihr Mann hat sie verlassen, und sie lebt mit dem gemeinsam adoptierten Sohn Tomas im irischen Galway an der Atlantikküste. Der dreizehnjährige Tomas schwimmt für sein Leben gern im offenen Meer. Rebecca erfüllt seinen großen Traum und schenkt ihm einen Neoprenanzug – am nächsten Morgen, als sie aufwacht, sind er und der Anzug verschwunden. Es beginnen Tage des Suchens, des Wartens, des Hoffens, der Schuldgefühle, der Verzweiflung ...