Author Bio
• Birth—1965
• Where—Dublin, Ireland
• Education—Dublin Institute of Technology
• Awards—U.S. National Book Award (more below)
• Currently—lives in New York City
Colum McCann is an Irish author of several novels including, Let the Great World Spin (2009), which was the winner of the U.S.'s National Book Award, as well as the International Dublin Literary Prize. For his body of work—novels and short stories over some two dozen years—he has been the recipient of numerous awards.
McCann was born in Dublin in 1965 and studied journalism in the former College of Commerce in Rathmines, now the Dublin Institute of Technology. He became a reporter for The Irish Press Group, and by the age of 21 had his own column in the Evening Press. McCann says that his work as a journalist gave him an excellent platform for launching a career in fiction.
In 1986 McCann moved to the U.S., working for a short period in Hyannis, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod. Between 1986 and 1988 he took a cross-country bike trip, traveling nearly 7,500 miles (12,000 km) in order to experience "a true democracy of voices." In 1988 he moved to the state of Texas where he became a wilderness educator with juvenile delinquents.
He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, where he began writing the stories that he later included in his his first collection, Fishing the Sloe-Black River (1993).
For 18 months, between 1993-94, McCann and his wife Allison lived in Japan, teaching English as a foreign language. It was during his time that he finished his work on Sloe Black River. In 1994 he and his wife moved to New York, where they now live with their three children.
Novels and story collections
1993 - Fishing the Sloe Black River (Stories)
1995 - Songdogs
1998 - This Side of Brightness
2000 - Everything in this Country Must (Stories)
2003 - Dancer
2006 - Zoli
2009 - Let the Great World Spin
2013 - TransAtlantic
2015 - Thirteen Ways of Looking (Stories)
2020 - Apeirogon
Awards and Honors
In addition to the U.S.'s National Book Award (2009) and the International Dublin Literary Prize (2011) for Let the Great World Spin, McCann has also received the following recognition over the years:
Pushcart Prize, Rooney Prize, Irish Novel of the Year Award, Ireland Fund of Monaco Princess Grace Memorial Literary Award, Hennessy Literary Awards Hall of Fame, Chevalier des Arts et Lettres, Deauville Festival Literary Prize (the Ambassador Award), Medici Book Club Prize, Grinzane Award in Italy, Guggenheim Fellowship, American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, International Dublin Literary Award finalist.
(Author Bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/28/2002.)