Author Guide · Literary Fiction
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Colm Tóibín could not read until he was nine, and his father, a schoolteacher in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, died when he was twelve. Much of his fiction goes back to that town and to the silences of that house. He spent three years in Barcelona after university, edited the Dublin news magazine Magill in the early 1980s, and published his first novel, The South, in 1990. Since then he has been shortlisted three times for the Booker Prize, won the International Dublin Literary Award for The Master, the Costa Novel Award for Brooklyn and the Rathbones Folio Prize for The Magician, and in 2024 returned to Eilis Lacey of Brooklyn in Long Island. This guide covers his 11 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 11 key books · 1990–2024 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Colm Tóibín has published 11 novels, from The South (1990) to Long Island (2024). The best known are Brooklyn (2009), filmed in 2015 with Saoirse Ronan, The Master (2004), about Henry James, and The Magician (2021), about Thomas Mann. Start with Brooklyn, then read its sequel Long Island. Below are all eleven in order, plus his stories, poems and essays.
Where to Start with Colm Tóibín
If you want the book everyone means
→ Brooklyn (2009) — a young woman between Enniscorthy and New York.
If you want a novel about a writer
→ The Master (2004) — Henry James after the failure of his play.
If you want his Wexford at its quietest
→ Nora Webster (2014) — a widow rebuilding her life, slowly.
If you want something short
→ The Testament of Mary (2012) — Mary, years after the crucifixion, in a short novella.
11 Colm Tóibín Books, in Order
The South
His first novel. In the 1950s an Irish Protestant woman leaves her husband and child in County Wexford and goes to Barcelona, under Franco, to paint; she later settles with a lover in the Pyrenees. It draws on Tóibín’s own years in Barcelona from 1975, was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award and won the Irish Times Irish Literature Prize for a first book.
The Heather Blazing
Eamon Redmond, a High Court judge, is haunted by his own past and by the history of modern Ireland; the novel moves between his present and his childhood in Wexford, and traces the rise of Fianna Fáil alongside his family. It won the Encore Award for a second novel.
The Story of the Night
Richard Garay, a young gay man in Buenos Aires, comes of age under military rule and through the Falklands War, as Argentina moves towards democracy. It is Tóibín’s first novel with an openly gay narrator, and it reaches into the years of AIDS.
The Blackwater Lightship
A teacher learns that her brother is dying of AIDS. Gathered at their grandmother’s house on the Wexford coast, three generations of women in the family, long estranged, have to face old quarrels for his sake. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and for the International Dublin Literary Award.
The Master
A novel of Henry James from January 1895 to October 1899, opening with the public failure of his play Guy Domville in London and following him to Rye, where he withdraws and writes. Tóibín stays close to James’s mind: his friendships, his family, and the desire he never acts on. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, it won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Lambda Literary Award, and in 2006 the International Dublin Literary Award.
Brooklyn
In the 1950s Eilis Lacey leaves Enniscorthy for a new life in Brooklyn and falls in love with Tony Fiorello, an Italian-American plumber. When her sister Rose dies she goes home, where Jim Farrell and a settled life in Ireland are waiting, and has to choose. It was longlisted for the Booker Prize and won the Costa Novel Award; John Crowley’s 2015 film, written by Nick Hornby, earned three Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.
The Testament of Mary
Years after the crucifixion, Mary tells her own version of her son’s death and refuses the meaning his followers want to give it. The novella grew out of a stage monologue, Testament, first performed in Dublin in 2011, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The 2013 Broadway production with Fiona Shaw drew Catholic protests and three Tony nominations.
Nora Webster
In Enniscorthy at the end of the 1960s, Nora, aged forty, is left with four children after the death of her husband Maurice, a popular teacher. She sells the family’s seaside cottage, goes back to office work, and through singing lessons and a gramophone finds a life of her own, as the Troubles begin in the North. Tóibín began it in 2000 and drew on his own family; it won the Hawthornden Prize.
House of Names
A retelling of the Oresteia. Clytemnestra narrates how her husband Agamemnon sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia, and how she killed him on his return from Troy; the story then follows their son Orestes and daughter Electra. It moves Tóibín’s interest in families and silence into ancient Greece.
The Magician
A novel of the whole life of Thomas Mann, from his boyhood in Lübeck through the Nobel Prize, exile from Nazi Germany and years in California, centred on his marriage to Katia, their children and his hidden desire for men. Much of it was written after Tóibín’s cancer treatment. It won the 2022 Rathbones Folio Prize.
Long Island
Some twenty years after Brooklyn, in the 1970s, Eilis lives in Lindenhurst, Long Island, with Tony and their two teenage children, beside his family. An Irishman tells her that Tony has made his wife pregnant and that he will leave the baby on her doorstep. Eilis goes back to Enniscorthy for her mother’s eightieth birthday, and meets Jim Farrell again. It was an Oprah’s Book Club pick in May 2024.
In What Order to Read Colm Tóibín
Only two of Tóibín’s novels are connected: Brooklyn (2009) and Long Island (2024). Read them in that order. Brooklyn ends with Eilis choosing between Ireland and America; Long Island opens some twenty years later, in the 1970s, and depends on knowing that choice, and on knowing who Tony and Jim Farrell are. The fifteen-year gap between the books is close to the gap in Eilis’s life.
Every other novel stands alone, though several share a place. The Heather Blazing, The Blackwater Lightship, Brooklyn and Nora Webster all go back to Enniscorthy and the Wexford coast, and can be read in any order. The Master and The Magician make a natural pair: both are novels of a real writer’s inner life. The Testament of Mary and House of Names are his two retellings of old stories, and the shortest way in.
A reading path
1. Brooklyn (2009)
2. Long Island (2024)
3. Nora Webster (2014)
4. The Master (2004)
5. The Magician (2021)
Everything Else Colm Tóibín Published
Beyond the 11 key books: 16 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Short story collections
3
3 books · 2006–2026
- 2006Mothers and Sonsstories about mothers and sons, including the tension between Catholicism and homosexuality
- 2010The Empty Familystories of people going home to Ireland, shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor Award
- 2026The News from Dublinnine stories set in Ireland, Spain and America
Poetry
1
1 book · 2022
- 2022Vinegar Hilla collection of poems
Nonfiction and essays
11
11 books · 1987–2022
- 1987Martyrs and Metaphorsessays
- 1987Walking Along the Bordera walk along the Irish border; reissued in 1994 as Bad Blood
- 1990The Trial of the Generalsselected journalism, 1980–1990
- 1990Homage to Barcelonaon the city where he lived in the 1970s
- 1994The Sign of the Crosstravels in Catholic Europe
- 2001Love in a Dark Timegay lives from Wilde to Almodóvar
- 2002Lady Gregory’s Toothbrusha short book on Augusta Gregory
- 2012New Ways to Kill Your Motheressays on writers and their families
- 2015On Elizabeth Bishopon the American poet
- 2018Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Knowthe fathers of Wilde, Yeats and Joyce
- 2022A Guest at the Feastessays
Edited
1
1 book · 1999
- 1999The Penguin Book of Irish Fictionan anthology of Irish fiction
The years · 1955–2024
Quick facts about Colm Tóibín
- Known for
- Quiet, closely observed novels about Irish families, exile and the things people leave unsaid, above all Brooklyn.
- 1955
- Born in Enniscorthy, County Wexford
- 1990
- First novel, The South
- 2009
- Brooklyn
- 2024
- Long Island, the sequel
- Born
- 30 May 1955, Enniscorthy, County Wexford, the fourth of five children
- Education
- St Peter’s College, Wexford; University College Dublin, BA in history and English (1975)
- Journalism
- Editor of Magill, 1982–1985; long-time critic for the London Review of Books and The New York Review of Books
- Teaching
- Professor at Columbia University; earlier professor of creative writing at the University of Manchester; Chancellor of the University of Liverpool, 2017–2022
- Laureate
- Laureate for Irish Fiction, 2022–2024, named by the Arts Council of Ireland
- Prizes
- Three Booker shortlists; International Dublin Literary Award (2006); Costa Novel Award (2009); David Cohen Prize (2021); Rathbones Folio Prize (2022)
The red mark is 2009: Brooklyn, the Costa-winning novel that became an Oscar-nominated film.
How Colm Tóibín Writes: What Is Not Said
Tóibín works by restraint. His characters rarely say what they feel, and the drama sits in what they hold back: Eilis keeping her marriage secret in Brooklyn, Nora Webster refusing other people’s sympathy, Henry James turning away from the men he desires in The Master. He has spoken of the “great deal of silence” in his childhood home in Enniscorthy, and the town keeps coming back: four of his eleven novels are set there or on the nearby Wexford coast.
His sentences are plain and exact, built from small physical details, a shop counter, a bus timetable, a room being painted, rather than commentary. He has said a novel often starts for him with a single image, memory or person, and that once a sentence “moves into rhythm” the rest is labour. He tells most of his novels from inside one consciousness, close up, which is why so little seems to happen and so much is felt.
Exile and return run through almost everything: a runaway wife in Barcelona in The South, Richard Garay in Buenos Aires, Eilis between two countries, Thomas Mann in California. Since The Master he has also written about real people from the inside, Henry James, Mary, Clytemnestra, Thomas Mann, using biography and myth the way his Irish novels use memory.
Watch
Colm Tóibín interviewed by Louisiana Channel
Interviewed by Tonny Vorm at the Louisiana Literature festival in Denmark in August 2015, Tóibín explains how a novel can grow from a single image, memory or person once the first sentence finds its rhythm.
Frequently asked questions about Colm Tóibín’s books
How many books has Colm Tóibín written?
Eleven novels, from The South (1990) to Long Island (2024), all listed on this page. He has also published three story collections, Mothers and Sons (2006), The Empty Family (2010) and The News from Dublin (2026), a collection of poems, Vinegar Hill (2022), and the eleven books of nonfiction and essays in the bibliography.
What are Colm Tóibín’s books in order?
The South (1990), The Heather Blazing (1992), The Story of the Night (1996), The Blackwater Lightship (1999), The Master (2004), Brooklyn (2009), The Testament of Mary (2012), Nora Webster (2014), House of Names (2017), The Magician (2021) and Long Island (2024).
Where should I start with Colm Tóibín?
With Brooklyn. It is his best-known novel, easy to follow, and leads straight into its sequel, Long Island. If you prefer a novel about a writer, start with The Master; if you want something short, The Testament of Mary.
What is Colm Tóibín’s most famous book?
Brooklyn (2009). It won the Costa Novel Award, was longlisted for the Booker Prize, and was filmed in 2015 by John Crowley, with Saoirse Ronan as Eilis Lacey and a screenplay by Nick Hornby. The film was nominated for three Oscars, including Best Picture, and won the BAFTA for Outstanding British Film.
Should I read Brooklyn before Long Island?
Yes. Long Island (2024) is a direct sequel. Brooklyn (2009) follows Eilis Lacey from Enniscorthy to New York in the 1950s and ends with her choice between Tony Fiorello and Jim Farrell; Long Island picks up about twenty years later, in the 1970s, when that choice comes back to her. They are the only two connected novels he has written.
Is The Master about Henry James?
Yes. The Master (2004) follows Henry James from the failure of his play Guy Domville in London in 1895 through the next four years, most of them in Rye. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award. The Magician (2021) does the same for Thomas Mann.
Why was The Testament of Mary controversial?
The book shows Mary, years after the crucifixion, rejecting the story Jesus’s followers tell about his death. When the stage version opened on Broadway in April 2013, with Fiona Shaw, the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property protested outside the theatre, calling it blasphemous, and the Catholic League criticised it. The production closed on 5 May 2013, two weeks into a planned twelve-week run, despite three Tony nominations, including Best Play.
Has Colm Tóibín won the Booker Prize?
No. He has been shortlisted three times, for The Blackwater Lightship (1999), The Master (2004) and The Testament of Mary (2013), and longlisted for Brooklyn (2009). His wins include the International Dublin Literary Award for The Master, the Costa Novel Award for Brooklyn, the Hawthornden Prize for Nora Webster, the David Cohen Prize (2021) and the Rathbones Folio Prize for The Magician (2022).
Which of his books have been adapted?
Brooklyn became John Crowley’s 2015 film with Saoirse Ronan, Domhnall Gleeson and Emory Cohen. The Testament of Mary began as a stage monologue, Testament, at the Dublin Theatre Festival in 2011, and went to Broadway in 2013 as The Testament of Mary.
Is Colm Tóibín still alive?
Yes. He was born on 30 May 1955 in Enniscorthy. He has written publicly about being treated for cancer, which interrupted work on The Magician. He teaches at Columbia University and was Laureate for Irish Fiction from 2022 to 2024; his most recent books are Long Island (2024) and the story collection The News from Dublin (2026).
Footnotes
- Colm Tóibín — Wikipedia
- Colm Tóibín bibliography — Wikipedia
- Chancellor Colm Tóibín named Laureate for Irish Fiction — University of Liverpool, 2022
- Tóibín wins Rathbones Folio Prize 2022 for The Magician — The Bookseller
- Brooklyn (film) — Wikipedia
- The Testament of Mary (play) — Wikipedia
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“I knew that if the cancer came back, the chances of writing the book were zero.”
— Colm Tóibín, on The Magician, in The Bookseller (2022)
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