A Guest at the Feast

Colm Tóibín was born in Enniscorthy in 1955. He is the author of nine novels including The Master, Brooklyn, The Testament of Mary and Nora Webster and, most recently, House of Names. His work has been shortlisted for the Booker three times, won the Costa Novel Award and the Impac Award. He has also published two collections of stories and many works of non-fiction. He lives in Dublin.

Sumptous ... In the hands of a master of Toibin's gifts, this deceptively slim memoir expands out into something far greater than you might expect. In what amounts to not much more than a long magazine article, he creates a sweeping, lyrical portrait of the small-town idiosyncrasies, natural landscapes and family histories in southeast Ireland on which his novels have drawn for decades.