Colum McCann

This Side of Brightness by Colum McCannAt the turn of the century, Nathan Walker comes to New York City to take the most dangerous job in the country. A sandhog, he burrows beneath the East River, digging the tunnel that will carry trains from Brooklyn to Manhattan. In the bowels of the riverbed, the sandhogs--black, …

Zoli is a novel by Colum McCann. It follows the life of Marienka Novotna, nicknamed "Zoli", a Slovak Romani woman, from her childhood in the 1930s, through her exile in the 1950s, to her late adult life. Although Zoli is a fictional character, her life is loosely based on that of the Polish Romani poet Papusza. Zoli …