Colm Tóibín: 'It is easy to write about murder, but a marraige plot is really hard' 

"It is easy to write about murder, but a marraige plot is really hard." 

Irish writer Colm Tóibín referring to 'Long Island', the new sequel to his critically acclaimed 2009 novel 'Brooklyn'. 

After a life-long love affair with Catalonia, Tóibín is back in Barcelona at an event at CCCB organized by Arcàdia, publishers of 'La mirada captiva', a collection of fifteen essays by the writer on artists such as Miró, Calder, Barceló and Tàpies. 

Tóibín, whose first novel, The South, was set in Catalonia, also spoke of his interest in silence, for its dramatic qualities, and because it allows him to play with the reader. 

"Silence is dramatic because you can play with the reader. So that you're working with silences  – not merely stable silence but silence that keeps a secret that only one person knows and so you're getting dramatic narrative energy from that."