Colum McCann is the author of seven novels and three collections of stories. From Dublin, Ireland, he has been the recipient of many honours, including the National Book Award, the International Dublin Impac Prize, a Chevalier des Arts et Lettres from the French government, election to the Irish arts academy, several European awards, an Oscar nomination and more. In 2017 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts. His work has been published in over 40 languages.
He is the co-founder of the non-profit global story exchange organisation, Narrative 4, and he teaches at the MFA program in Hunter College. He lives in New York with his wife, Allison, and their family. His best-selling and award winning books include Transatlantic, Let the great World Spin, Zoli and This Side of Brightness.
His most recent bestselling and internationally acclaimed book Apeirogon which has been referred to as a ‘beautifully observed masterpiece’ (The Guardian) is based on an uplifting true story. It’s about two fathers — Rami Elhanan, an Israeli, and Bassam Aramin, a Palestinian — who each lost a young daughter to senseless violence. They have become friends and work together, through an organization called Combatants for Peace, to bring the opposing sides together. Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Partners has tapped Luke Davies (Lion, Candy, Beautiful Boy, Catch – 22, News of the World) to write the script for the movie adaption. www.colummccann.com
Rami Elhanan, is an Israeli Jew from the western tip of Jerusalem, served in a tank repair unit of the Israeli army during the Yom Kippur War. His father came to Jerusalem in 1946, shortly after surviving Auschwitz. Bassam Aramin, a Palestinian Muslim from Hebron, in the West Bank, spent seven years of his youth in an Israeli prison for hurling a defunct hand grenade at an Israeli jeep.
Their paths crossed at a Combatants for Peace gathering, an Israeli-Palestinian movement of ex-fighters committed to non-violence. Rami’s daughter, Smadar, had been killed in a suicide bombing attack in the late 1990s on Jerusalem’s Ben Yehuda Street. A decade later, Bassam faced the same devastation. In 2007, his ten-year-old daughter, Abir, was killed by an Israeli rubber bullet near her school.
Bassam and Rami, united in grief, have since traveled the world to spread their mission of dialogue over violence. Through Combatants for Peace and the Parents Circle Families Forum, made up of bereaved Israeli and Palestinian families, the duo has spent decades preaching bridge-building over division
Award-winning author Colum McCann’s new novel, Apeirogon, is based on the unlikely real-life friendship between two bereaved fathers born into opposite sides of the conflict.