Magician

From one of our greatest living writers comes a sweeping novel of unrequited love and exile, war and family.The Magician tells the story of Thomas Mann, whose life was filled with great acclaim and contradiction. He would find himself on the wrong side of history in the First World War, cheerleading the German army, but have a clear vision of the future in the second, anticipating the horrors of Nazism.He would have six children and keep his homosexuality hidden; he was a man forever connected to his family and yet bore witness to the ravages of suicide. He would write some of the greatest works of European literature, and win the Nobel Prize, but would never return to the country that inspired his creativity.Through one life, Colm Tóibín tells the breathtaking story of the twentieth century.___________________________________'As with everything Colm Tóibín sets his masterful hand to, The Magician is a great imaginative achievement -- immensely readable, erudite, worldly and knowing, and fully realized' - Richard Ford'No living novelist dramatizes artistic creation as profoundly, as luminously, as Colm Tóibín . . . reading him is among the deepest pleasures our literature can offer' - Garth Greenwell'This is not just a whole life in a novel, it's a whole world' - Katharina Volckmer

Review
This is an enormously ambitious book, one in which the intimate and the momentous are exquisitely balanced. It is the story of a man who spent almost all of his adult life behind a desk or going for sedate little post-prandial walks with his wife. From this sedentary existence Tóibín has fashioned an epic ― GuardianI love everything Colm Tóibín has written and The Magician is another masterpiece . . . Historical fiction at its best -- Nicola Sturgeon ― New Statesman, Books of the YearSumptuous and satisfying ― The Times, A Best Fiction Book of 2021The Magician, recreates as biographical fiction the life, thoughts and achievements of Thomas Mann. It is dark, beautifully constructed and, I think, as near as one author can get to entering the mind of another -- Melvyn Bragg ― New Statesman, Books of the YearThe Magician uses the life of Thomas Mann to explore the complex relationships between intimacy and history, public and private lives, and the slippery nature of creativity itself. I found it mesmerising -- Fintan O’Toole ― New Statesman, Books of the YearTaking on Thomas Mann is no easy task, but Tóibín's fictional account of the inner life of the great German novelist is masterful -- Frederick Studemann ― FT, Best Books of 2021: Critics’ PicksThe Magician is not a biography but a work of art, an emotional reckoning with a century of change, centred on a man who tried to stand upright but was swayed by the winds of that change ― The TimesIn a novel of many moods, its every page rings true ― Mail on SundayAn expansive yet deeply personal exploration of the life of exiled German writer Thomas Mann . . . Containing beautiful observations on life and literature, and a sweeping sense of historical scale, The Magician remains tightly written and wryly funny ― IndependentBoth epic and intimate, The Magician is most successful in its moving portrait of three generations of sprawling, loving, fractious family life . . . a triumph ― Financial Times

About the Author
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.