Colum McCann, writer

I have been in the United States on and off now for the best part of a decade. For the last five years I have lived in New York. For most of that time I have consciously denied any inherent link with being "American", as if I am just on an extended visit, a blow-in, a curious happening. But the truth is, I married an American. I then had an American daughter. Followed by an American son. In an American city. Working on a novel that centred around American questions of race and identity. All this "American-ness" was suddenly a scaffold to my heart. But what also held me together throughout all of this was the notion that I never wanted to lose my "Irishness". I have tried to fiercely protect that corner of myself that was my early weather. Yet recently I have grown accustomed to the notion that I am, in many ways, a man of two countries. I have a foot planted in the dark corners of each. Every year, I try to spend long enough in Ireland in order to rediscover why I left it. I also spend long enough in the States in order to question why I would want to live here.