Transcripts For DW Shift 20240713

Dont care if. We met the irish writer colm toibin while he was in berlin the world renowned author is extremely versatile he writes novels short stories essays place and poetry we spoke with him about his books in his life as well as about ireland and how its changing. Tobin is particularly known for his skill at writing compelling female characters. His bestselling novel brooklyn was adapted for the screen it tells the story of ilish a young woman who cannot find work in ireland and so makes the difficult decision to emigrate. Like so many before and after her ilish boards a ship in the hope of finding a better future. She had. Tunisia. There she settles in the borough of brooklyn which is home to a Large Community of irish immigrants. At 1st and shes torn between the 2 cultures and then between teammate tourney in new york. And who she meets in ireland on a trip. To be compassionate depiction of her heartache for torment and her agonizing decision consolidated his reputation as a writer of women. Where does his understanding of women come from. A woman i would say maybe could you just stop that making those exaggerated figures of women you know there are gay versions of it was i think in a very powerful am i was brought up by women and other words that they were my mother had sisters were in the house a lot i had to nurse siblings of a girl so were always well women talk and i was always very interesting what they were saying whereas the man could say im a very grumpy your tree man talk about some sport i was not if youre a 5 year old is nothing theres nothing in it for you in this or that women upstairs would matter what they say it would be all for us. It is for me. To be has written 2 books much of his work is autobiographical and ireland plays a major role. Each artist in the great irish tradition has invented an island thats what you said in an interview what is your island i come from a sphere a few streets in a small town in the southeast. Thats my wild and small stretch of the wexford coast about 10 miles away so im. Sure the word is home but certainly a territory not of their territory but a great deal of emotional resonance so because i know those streets and i know that stretch of coast so thats mine in this place with long winters long memories have a lot of grey sky and i can walk from that. To being isnt the only one to have been inspired by the skies of violent this country and 5000000 has given birth to a disproportionately high number of writers james joyce is arguably the most famous. But so is the playwright George Bernard shaw. Oscar wilde. Samuel beckett. As well as the poet seamus heaney. Beckett and he were awarded the nobel prize for literature why. Press a place in what looks to its size the only way out of poverty was education the only way into education was literacy so literacy became a sort of fetish almost in poor families books reading and writing and in the long winters said you know one person in the family has to start thinking i could write one of those i could do that. Many of irelands great writers were born in the capital doubling. The city has a number of New Zealanders devoted to the countrys literary heritage. One is the Writers Museum which celebrates centuries of irish literature. What about the new generation of writers in ireland. But look at the moment its every season. 2 or 3 young writers or march were very very good its been happening especially the last 85 years and you go surely not another if you read the book you think this is very good at the moment its an extraordinary thing and you thought maybe it wont happen again people become injured in software or you know go to work for facebook or something but now theyre writing novels and stories. And write is one example theres also colum mccann. And. Then theres sally rooney whos novel normal people was a runaway success all over the world. When you know youre reading it because its fascinating to see you know the ones who are more experimental and the ones who are writing for womens lives and the ones who write about the city of the country obviously its an absolute fascinating thing you know you want to be a fool not to readers and what literary tradition to see itself. Oh im sort of melancholy you know i come out of something thats melancholy. So. But the thing is when youre writing when youre working if you start thinking over what literary tradition do i come out of you with then write a terrible sentence which would be filled with selfimportance of sorts of me or my literature titian so you job is not to think like that to say that the sentences do the work and to make the sentences true meaning that if one sentences like this as a rhythm like this the next sentence has to be a variation on that rhythmically and you work almost as though youre a composer working and. Therefore the less you think. The better and better job is to sort of deal truthfully and for the melody for that is it like music but well its like music in that its based on melody its based on rhythm and it hits the nervous system sometimes or it should hit the readers nervous system before the reader starts to interpret or use their intelligence some other system is happening that causes the reader to turn the page not merely to know whats happening next but to actually follow the rhythm. Tobin is passionate about music. Or music especially baroque he divides time between ireland the United States and spain but he says home is where his records are do you listen to music while you have right now i know i know i think that would be a mistake it would bring in so the eat a lot of music has an easy emotion thats very satisfying but when youre working you need something much more austere such a silence and also i think you need to face in words youre having a big view out the window would distract you just look in or its all in word and its all silent no music no fear just no comfortable just just right you know just work along. Wonderful books of emerged from the selfimposed austerity the blackwater lightship tells of 3 generations of women discussing homosexuality hiv aids and changes in irish society. The pastor is a fictional account of the life of the us writer henry janes. Mothers and sons is a collection of short stories in which each story explores an aspect of the mother son relationship. Nora websters unforgettable protagonist struggles with grief and finds her way to emancipation in 1960 i. House of means is a retelling of a classic greek tragedy. Tobins shows his compassion and intelligence yes he was always an avid reader he struggled at school as a boy when he was 12 his father died in tobin began to start or. You did start reading at the age of 9 and you started writing poems its the age of 12. I was the death of your father the trigger to write or something ah i imagine so because it came very soon afterwards but it was also that in my family study was very important and that when you went to secondary school you should going to ruin your own every evening and you know you need to be reading your life and then youre learning science and i was writing poems you know and so just being left alone in a room like that with paper was the 1st thing i did instead of studying. The outlook for the literary world the extraction mothers and sons which toby reads to us tells of unexplained absence of returning motifs in his works. The time we were left by our mother you know our on trial has no drama attached to it was all grayness strangeness arent dealt with us in her own destructive way her husband was mild distant almost good humored and all i know is that our mother did not get in touch with us once not once during this time there were no letter was no letter or phone call or visit our father was in hospital we did not know how long we were going to be left there in the years that followed our mother never explained robsons we never asked her if youve ever wondered how we were or how we felt during those months. What you describe in this book and ignore but so thats what you experienced yourself when your father was dying your muslim left you alone with relatives i mean how did that influence your life you know writing. All that was more or less what happened it doesnt mean its autobiography because you change things and the way you remember changes things anyway so its not a sort of slice of memory as much as a sort of literary form that uses memory events things that happened as a way of sort of sickening the plot or or anchoring everything in what you might call fact or at least in things that i remember as a happy that i think are true i think that had enormous influence and you learn to look after yourself and you get the notion that nothing is ever certain or secure i suppose you learn not to trust people. Im not sure any of this is useful to being a writer but it certainly has helped me in some books to have a subject that i had not fully worked. You know in psychoanalysis or in any other way that it was like a knot that needs to be untied and so it became a pressing matter to write this down and to find a form for him to find a way off communicating it without sounding self pitying or sentimental. These days to be hes a citizen. But he remains drawn to the landscapes of his child to the. And to the atmosphere in the country for so many centuries by the rigid codes of the Catholic Church. Conservative catholic nationalistic there whats that was your family background today what youre present is just the opposite what happened ireland changed everyone in every family slowly change themselves i mean it wasnt you know it it began perhaps with the Womens Movement but i mean women who werent part of the Womens Movement just slowly in their own houses became more powerful became you know became more powerful or became less interested in being being made feel small and out of that group other movements about how to treat children about gay people or about people for example who didnt feel great religious feeling so their society became slowly sometimes imperceptibly and then quickly. Very liberal place to live and in easy place to live. Yet for a long time the Catholic Church did have a Strong Influence in ireland around 80 percent of the irish population is catholic. A series of sex abuse scandals has tarnished the churchs reputation but the priests and nuns tobin are likeable. In the last 2 decades a couple of scandals in the Catholic Church also in the in all over the world but became public but including in the irish county where you are from what all this girl raj looking back do you see your own experience in a different light i do because i was in a boarding school where a good number of the priests ended up in jail and so i think if youre a novelist but if youre anybody but just said novelist and youre looking at think i know where that happened and how it happened but at the time mr. I didnt realize what was going on right in front of me and i think for a novelist its a tremendously interesting idea that all the time. In our lives theres something going on thats maybe obvious except if they dont notice us. In a landmark referendum of 2015 a majority of irish citizens voted in favor of recognizing same sex marriage call into being. Played an Important Role in the campaign and is proud of irelands development