Abstract
In his 1996 novel The Story of the Night, Irish writer Colm Tóibín addressed the issue of homosexuality for the first time in his fiction. The novel weaves a manifold tale of nationality, identity and sexuality – and displaces that tale, as Tóibín himself acknowledged, onto “another country”, avoiding the “personal or polemical” in favour of the displaced and figuratively exiled (C. Tóibín 1996: 2). In so doing, Tóibín was following a model provided by one of his great literary idols, the African American novelist, essayist, playwright and poet, James Baldwin. Baldwin's own first direct treatment of homosexuality in fiction, Giovanni's Room (1956), was similarly set outside of the borders of his home nation and exceeded the confines of political or racial identity building.
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Naughton, G. (2010). Confronting the “Foreigner from Within”: (Sexual) Exile and “Indomitable Force” in the Fiction of James Baldwin and Colm Tóibín. In: Berg, W., Éigeartaigh, A. (eds) Exploring Transculturalism. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-531-92440-3_9
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