“'One Minus One' and 'Barcelona, 1975' are more or less autobiographica...” — Colm Toibin Quote

'One Minus One' and 'Barcelona, 1975' are more or less autobiographical.

It really matters to writers to find and treasure readers, all the more when they're on the other side of the world.

The Roman Catholic Church and its rituals were so much part of life that, although my parents would often question a small matter of dogma and none of us seemed more religious than anyone else, no one ever questioned the rituals or the basic tenets of belief.

I think that was one of the things that happened, especially in Ireland, that you left in order to improve yourself, and you couldn't write home and tell people, 'Look, I'm really lonely,' because you'd realize how much those letters were going to matter, that you needed to put good news or uplifting news into them.

Autobiographical fiction is very tricky.

I sat down to try to write 'Edinburgh,' an autobiographical novel, and that took five years to write and two years to sell.

I'm certainly no Bruce Springsteen in terms of being a storyteller, but I'm trying to get a better handle on it and not always go after it from an autobiographical standpoint.

Look, anything any writer writes is going to be on some level autobiographical. Part of the funny/sad thing is that you don't always know how autobiographical you're being.