The Magician cover art

The Magician

Winner of the Rathbones Folio Prize

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The Magician

By: Colm Tóibín
Narrated by: Gunnar Cauthery
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2022
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION 2022

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

© Colm Tóibín 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

20th Century Biographical Fiction Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction World War I Biography Thought-Provoking War

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Critic reviews

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 (Nicola Sturgeon)
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 (Melvyn Bragg)
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 (Fintan O’Toole)
Taking 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)
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
All stars
Most relevant
What an innovative way of writing a biography. Toibin really entered into Thomas Mann’s consciousness and brought alive his way of being and writing with great dialogue and ideas, something that could only be done by another author of great stature. A sad and fascinating piece of literature.

What a brilliant book.

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Outstanding authorial insights, subtly and magically conveyed - and the reader does justice to the spare and elegant prose. A treasure.

Mesmerising

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For anyone who has read all of Mann’s books this is an essential read. If you haven’t read his major works, be advised that spoilers run throughout. I loved this book. It has everything I love about literature and music. Yes the chapters are full of Mahler and Beethoven and I felt that Toibin was singing the book to me, helped on by the great deliberation by Gunnar Cauthery. However, there was one section which alluded to Mann’s observation to one of his sons that didn’t sit right with me. But that is just the view of an ageing heterosexual which might not be an issue with more modern readers. All in all I would give it 9.9/10 and will buy the hard copy when it comes out in paperback.

Cometh the Mann

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I knew little of Mann before listening to this. I am so grateful to have shared his life

ama,ing life of Thomas Mann

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i have thoroughly enjoyed this - such an insightful journey - this is the second novel i have read from this author (first was the story of the night) and it just makes me want to read more and more! i cannot recommend this enough!

spectacular novel

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