Infamous Tea & Honey show
Award-winning author Colm Toibin is arriving in China this month as part of his duties as a judge for the Man Asian Literary Prize. The winner of this year's USD10,000 prize, awarded to an Asian novel unpublished in English (first awarded to Wolf Totem by Chinese writer Jiang Rong in 2007), will be announced in Hong Kong later this month by Toibin and his fellow jury members Gish Jen and Pankaj Mishra, but first, Toibin will be stopping by Shanghai to promote the local release of his latest novel Brooklyn, courtesy of Penguin China, as well as a Chinese-language translation, courtesy of Shanghai 99 Readers.
"Of all the societies in the world, I think the Chinese population has known about change and what change does to people"
Brooklyn was longlisted for 2009’s Booker Prize, also sponsored by the Man Group; Toibin has also had two additional works shortlisted for the prestigious award, first 1999’s The Blackwater Lightship and more recently, 2006’s The Master, a fictional account of great American-British author Henry James. Toibin reveals that The Master has also been translated into Chinese, and he’s delighted at this additional opportunity to share his writing with Chinese readers. “For me, it is a wonderful thing that these novels have been translated into Chinese,” he says, adding: “I have not been in China before so I am really looking forward to it.”
Despite being set in 1950s Ireland (specifically, in Toibin’s hometown of Enniscorthy, where several of his previous novels take place as well) and Brooklyn, Toibin hopes the book will be of interest to local readers. “I think the novel might resonate for Chinese readers because it is about displacement and change,” he says. “Of all the societies in the world, I think, the Chinese population has known about change and what change does to people.” Of the book’s protagonist, Toibin says: “Eilis Lacey, the heroine, moves from a small town to a large city, and this is something which many people in China have also experienced.”
While some authors may feel ill at ease about writing about the opposite sex, Toibin clearly has no qualms. “Of my six novels, three are about men and three about women,” he says. “I think a novel should be able to imagine anything.”
The inspiration for Brooklyn and his heroine, he reveals, was based on a true story. “A woman came to the house when I was twelve and told my mother the story and I was listening,” he says. “But it was just the bare outline of the story. I had to invent the rest.”
Toibin will be talking about Brooklyn and its Chinese-language translation at M on the Bund on Nov 8, 4pm. RMB65 (6350 9988)
