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Arts feature

Colm Toibin on priests, loss and the half-said thing

Jenny McCartney talks to the unstoppable literary force about the new film adaptation of his novel Brooklyn

24 October 2015

9:00 AM

24 October 2015

9:00 AM

‘No matter what I’m writing,’ says Colm Tóibín, ‘someone ends up getting abandoned. Or someone goes. No matter what I’m trying to do it comes in.’ It’s a reflection, he says, of his own consciousness. It makes ‘its way into everything’.

If Tóibín is on close terms with the ache of loss, few writers have put it to such elegant use.

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Brooklyn is in cinemas from 6 November.

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