Colum Mccann

Colum McCann Dancer and Zoli

Biography

Colum McCann was born in Dublin Ireland in 1965 His father was a journalist and nurtured Colum’s love for writing by surrounding him with books. He began his career following in his

Inspiration In the late 1980s, McCann decided to bike

ride through North America for a year. After that, he decided to travel Japan for another year which is where he met his wife Allison The reason- McCann had traveled to Massachusetts on a business trip and when he attempted to write a “great Irish American novel” he realized he couldn’t possibly write anything because he had not the experience of seeing other people and world.

Continued Another source of McCann’s inspiration

comes from his grandfather. He only met him once when he was eight, but he recalls him telling him stories of war, love and drinking. McCann remembers the characters his grandfather would create and from then on believed in the importance of good characters.

Most of McCann’s novels are based off the

lives and places he has observed. He has explained that he feels it is important to tell these stories because “if not him, who will?” Of the eight books McCann has published, they have all been noted for their historical reference, interesting mixture of characters, and accuracy in setting. McCann acknowledges these praises to his belief in the importance of travel and character story telling.

Awards McCann has won numerous awards for his

work including: 2003 Esquire Magazine’s “Writer of the year” The Pushcart Prize The Rooney Prize 2003 The Irish independent Hughes Independent Novel of the Year 2002 the Irish Princess Grace Memorial Literary Award He has been inducted into the Hennessy Hall of Fame for Irish Literature

Novels 2009 Let the Great World Spin 2008 The World Unfurled 2007 Zoli 2004 Dancer 2004 Everything in This Country Must 2004 Fishing the Sloe-Black River 2003 This Side of Brightness 1996 Songdogs

Dancer

Summary  This is a fictionalized story based on the life of

Rudolf Nureyev who was a famous dancer who defected from Russia in 1961.  The story begins in “Rudik’s” childhood as a young boy in Russia. His father has just returned from the war  Rudik begins to take dance lessons and eventually moves to Leningrad to pursue dancing  He is vulgar, bold, rude, and brilliant  He defects to America in 1961 where he continues his dance career until his old age  The novel concludes at a time very close to

Interesting Aspect In his novel Dancer, McCann tells the story

from the perspective of seven characterschanging throughout the novel. This method of writing a biographical novel was very successful because it allows the reader a deeper understanding of the main subject (Rudolf Nureyev) by seeing how others viewed him rather than just one character’s views and opinions. In Dancer, we learned about the life of Rudik through himself, his first dance teacher, her husband, his dance teacher’s daughter, Rudik’s sister, his friend Victor, Rudik’s

Passage from the Novel “The magic of dance, young man, is something purely accidental. The irony of this is that you have to work harder than anyone else for the accident to occur. Then, when it happens, it is the only thing in your life guaranteed never to happen again. This, to some, is an unhappy state of affairs, and yet to others, it is the only ecstasy.”- Colum McCann, Dancer, 68

Zoli

Summary Zoli is the story of Zoli, a gypsy growing up

in Czechoslovakia. She is part of the Roma people. It is the 1940s and her people are being driven out and murdered by the fascist guard. She and her grandfather are the only to escape. They travel to find new company, and on the way, Zoli learns to read and write and beings to exercise her gift for writing and singing. Skip ahead a few years and Stephen Swan arrives from England to translate the now alleged famous poetry by Zoli. They end up

Interesting Aspect With this novel, I found McCann to be very

photographical in Zoli. As I read the book, I felt like I was watching it rather than reading it. He described settings and characters in such great detail. It felt raw and true. This novel would be a great example of showing rather than telling.