About the Author:
Colm Toibin was born in Ireland in 1955. He is the author of five novels, most recently The Master which was shorlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize. His non-fiction includes Bad Blood, Homage to Barcelona and The Sign of the Cross. His work has been translated into seventeen languages. He lives in Dublin.
From Booklist:
Like a majority of Irishmen, this celebrated novelist was raised in the Catholic Church. Although he is no longer a practicing Catholic, his latest book is a meditation on his own boyhood beliefs and on the ways in which the church influences the lives of Catholics in Europe today. Toibin traveled extensively--from Lourdes to Barcelona and on to Prague, Warsaw, the Baltic coast, Berlin, Sweden, Estonia, and points further--all the while partaking in pilgrimages, papal masses, and religious festivals. At the book's midpoint he writes incisively about a personal epiphany experienced in a psychotherapy session he attended. And from his numerous conversations with politicians and priests, literary figures, and ordinary men and women encountered as he journeyed, Toibin's remarkably articulate voice reveals a startling range of perceptions, even as it conveys the intricate couplings between politics and Catholicism. Alice Joyce
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