科拉姆·麦卡恩

科拉姆·麦卡恩（Colum McCann，1965年2月28日—），爱尔兰作家。他是纽约亨特学院美术大师项目杰出创意写作教授，经常访问欧洲研究院。他的作品以35种语言出版。主要小说作品包括《声犬》、《亮的一侧》、《舞者》、《佐丽》、《让伟大的世界旋转》、《大西洋》。2011年获国际IMPAC都柏林文学奖。

Colum McCann (born February 28, 1965) is an Irish writer of literary fiction. He was born in Dublin, Ireland, and currently resides in New York. Awards he has won include the U.S. National Book Award and the International Dublin Literary Award, and his work has been published in over 40 languages as well as being published in many American and international publications. He also is the co-founder and president of Narrative 4, an international empathy education nonprofit.

McCann is the author of eight novels, including Apeirogon (2020), TransAtlantic (2013) and the National Book Award-winning Let the Great World Spin (2009). Three collections of short stories have been published, including Thirteen Ways of Looking, released in October 2015. American Mother was released in March 2024 and tells the story of Diane Foley, whose son, James Foley, was captured and killed by ISIS while serving as a freelance combat reporter in Syria. His latest novel, Twist, was released in March 2025.

Early life and education

McCann's mother is from Derry in Northern Ireland, and he spent summers with his family there. His father, Sean McCann, was features editor for the Evening Press newspaper in Dublin, and a prolific author. Colum remembers following his father around the newsroom and seeing the writing process in action. McCann started writing at age eleven, when he rode his bike around Dun Laoghaire reporting on local football matches for The Irish Press.

Despite his father's advice to "not become a journalist", McCann began his career as a newspaper writer. He studied journalism at the College of Commerce in Rathmines, Dublin (now a part of the Technological University Dublin). While at school, he wrote for a number of newspapers, including the Irish Independent and the Evening Herald, and in 1983 he was named "Young Journalist of the Year". McCann has said that his time in newspapers gave him an excellent platform from which to launch a career in fiction.

Career

Move to the U.S.

McCann moved to the United States in the summer of 1986 to become a fiction writer. He first lived in Hyannis, Massachusetts, where he worked on a golf course and as a cab driver. That summer, he bought a typewriter and tried to write "the great Irish American novel", but quickly realized that he wasn't up to the task and that he'd need "to get some experience beyond my immediate white-bread world". Between 1986 and 1988 he took a bicycle across the United States, travelling 12,000 kilometres (about 8,000 miles). "Part of the reason for the trip was simply to expand my lungs emotionally", he said, to come in contact with what he calls "a true democracy of voices".

During the trip, he stayed with Native Americans in Gallup, New Mexico, lived with Amish people in Pennsylvania, fixed bikes in Colorado, and dug ditches to help fight fires in Idaho. He found that the people he met would confide their deepest secrets in him, even though they had just met. He credits those voices—and that trip—with developing his ability to listen to other people.

In 1988, he moved to Brenham, Texas, where he worked as a wilderness educator with at-risk youth. He spent two years finishing his undergraduate education at University of Texas at Austin and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. While at UT, a story he published in a campus literary magazine was included in Britain's Best Short Stories of 1993, an early success in his young literary career.