The Magician

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

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

I love everything Colm Tóibín has written and The Magician is another masterpiece . . . Historical fiction at its best

Sumptuous and satisfying

The 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

The 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

Taking on Thomas Mann is no easy task, but Tóibín's fictional account of the inner life of the great German novelist is masterful

The 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

In a novel of many moods , its every page rings true

An 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

Both epic and intimate , The Magician is most successful in its moving portrait of three generations of sprawling, loving, fractious family life . . . a triumph

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.