Colm Tóibín

Colm Tóibín is the Guest of Honour of the 31st Budapest International Book Festival

Colm Tóibín (1955–) is one of the leading and most widely read authors of contemporary world literature. His remarkably diverse body of work includes novels, short stories, essays, plays and literary criticism, while he also continues to shape literary thought through his work as a university professor. His books have been translated into more than 30 languages, and he has received numerous literary awards, including the Costa Novel Award for Brooklyn, the Lambda Literary Award for The Master, the Rathbones Folio Prize, and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for The Master. He has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times. In 2011, he received the Irish PEN Award for his outstanding contribution to Irish literature. In 2021, he was awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature, one of the most prestigious literary honours in the United Kingdom and Ireland, which recognises the lifetime achievement of a contemporary writer. He served as Ireland's Laureate for Irish Fiction from 2022 to 2024. He is currently a professor at Columbia University.

Tóibín's writing is particularly concerned with European history, identity, cultural heritage and family dynamics. His novel The Magician is especially noteworthy: it explores the life of the German novelist Thomas Mann against the backdrop of the political upheavals of the 20th century. The Hungarian edition of The Magician, translated by Júlia Kada, will be published for the 2026 Budapest International Book Festival. Tóibín's official bibliography confirms The Magician as the original English title.

Through Tóibín, we will have the opportunity to meet not only an internationally acclaimed and widely read author, but also a European intellectual who, as an Irish writer, brings particular sensitivity to the cultures of smaller nations, historical trauma, migration and the significance of individual stories.

The novels by Colm Tóibín published by Park Publishing House in Hungarian include: The Testament of Mary (2015), Brooklyn (2016), Nora Webster (2018), The Blackwater Lightship (2019), and Long Island (2024). These works have sold several thousand copies in Hungary. The original English titles correspond to Tóibín's bibliography.

One of the highlights of the 31st Budapest International Book Festival, taking place from 1–4 October 2026, will be the presentation of the Budapest Grand Prize, which will be awarded to Colm Tóibín this year.

The Széchenyi Academy of Letters and Arts, founded by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1992, elected new members to its sections at its annual general assembly on 8 December 2025. Colm Tóibín was elected an honorary member of the Literary Section. The Széchenyi Academy traditionally invites an outstanding Irish poet, writer or critic each year to give a commemorative address in honour of Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet Seamus Heaney. This year, on the occasion of the 13th edition of the event, Colm Tóibín will be the guest speaker, and he will also receive his certificate of honorary membership as part of the programme.

During the author's visit to Hungary, the Embassy of Ireland in Budapest will organise a number of events.