Brooklyn

Colm Tóibín is one of the leading figures of contemporary Irish literature, a subtle and multifaceted writer whose books have repeatedly made it to the shortlist of the Booker Prize and have won significant literary awards. For "Brooklyn," a quiet story of a young woman's search for herself, where feelings bubble deep and surface only as ripples, hints, and unspoken words, the author received the Costa Award, and in 2015, John Crowley adapted this novel into a film based on a script co-written by Tóibín and Nick Hornby. The heroine of "Brooklyn," Eilis, in search of work and a change of fortune, leaves her hometown of Enniscorthy, where everything is so familiar and cozy, for a foreign, unfamiliar New York. There, she suffers from nostalgia, searches for her place in the new country, finds love, makes difficult decisions, and is already settling in when sad family news calls her back to Ireland. All immigrant stories seem similar at first glance but never repeat one another. "Brooklyn" is a minor odyssey, where there are no particular passions, but everything is infused with feelings, piercing and relentless, the story of one young woman's journey to and fro, from Enniscorthy to Brooklyn and back to Enniscorthy, in search of herself, her independence, her place, but ultimately her home, from which one cannot escape and to which one cannot return.