Tóibín wins £40,000 biennial David Cohen Prize for Literature

Irish author Colm Tóibín has won the £40,000 biennial David Cohen Prize for Literature.

The award was announced on 13th December at the Royal Institute of British Architects and streamed live.

Tóibín's work has been translated into more than 30 languages and includes 10 novels and 11 works of non-fiction, as well as poetry, short story and essay collections, and journalism. His most recent novel, The Magician (Viking), was published in September. 

Hermione Lee, chair of judges, said Tóibín was the panel's "unanimous choice" adding "we’re all proud and delighted to be giving him the prize". She said: "I think of him as a Renaissance man who can do almost everything with equal brilliance: he’s a novelist, short story writer, playwright, essayist, travel-writer, critic, teacher, journalist and activist for gay rights.

"His novels and stories imagine their way into the lives and minds of others with amazing empathy and skill. He’s a deeply perceptive writer who can also be lethally funny and daringly erotic. He’s a truly international figure, and a watchful historian of our times. He’s a beautiful writer of loss and grief, silence and quietness. He writes with the intensity of a poet and the lyric rhythms of a musician. I have never missed a book by him and every book of his I’ve read has been a revelation. He’s one of the essential writers of our times.”

This year's judges also included Reeta Chakrabarti, Maura Dooley, Peter Kemp and Professor Susheila Nasta. Chakrabarti said Tóibín was "quite simply a class act in a highly competitive and talented field". She added: "He is a natural novelist, a writer of tremendous subtlety, simplicity and intelligence. His novels are rooted in time and place. He brings together seamlessly big public themes of politics and history with the personal struggles of individuals. He is fascinated by ambiguous characters, and writes of them in beautiful, spare prose. I have made many happy discoveries on this literary marathon, but none has given me more sustained pleasure than the writing of Colm Tóibín. I am thrilled that he has won.”

Tóibín said: “When I attended the inaugural reception for the David Cohen Prize in London in 1993, I did not imagine for a moment that my own writing would ever be honoured in this way. Those who have won the Prize in the past are artists whose work I revere. I am proud to be among them.” 

The David Cohen Prize for Literature is the only prize that is awarded for the whole body of work, not just for one book. The prize is awarded every two years in recognition of a living writer’s lifetime achievement in literature. The 2019 winner was fellow Irish author Edna O’Brien.

Tóibín went on to award the Clarissa Luard Award to Padraig Regan at the same ceremony. The £10,000 award was founded in 2005 by Arts Council England, in memory of literature officer Luard. The winner of the David Cohen Prize for Literature in turn nominates an emerging writer whose work they wish to support. 

Regan is the author of two pamphlets, Who Seemed Alive & Altogether Real (Emma Press) and Delicious (Lifeboat). In 2015, they were a recipient of an Eric Gregory Award, and in 2020 they were awarded the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary Prize. They hold a PhD from the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University Belfast, where they are currently one of the Ciaran Carson Writing and the City Fellows for 2021. Their first book Some Integrity will be published by Carcanet in January 2022.

Regan said: “I am honoured to be selected as the recipient of this year’s Clarissa Luard Award, and deeply grateful to Colm Tóibín for nominating me. To have one’s work recognised by a writer one admires is always encouraging, and this is especially true of a writer like Colm, whose body of work has made it easier for younger queer writers like myself to find their place within Irish literary traditions.”