Colum McCann, Writer: We don't have to think alike.

You know, we don't have to be alike.

We, we actually don't even have to, you know, like or love one another.

But we must understand one another.

Marcia Franklin, Host: Coming up…I talk with National Book Award-winning author Colum McCann about his work – and the power of storytelling to bring people together.

That's "Conversations from the Sun Valley Writers' Conference," next.

Stay tuned.

(Music) Major funding is provided by the Idaho Public Television Endowment and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Franklin: Hello and welcome to "Conversations from the Sun Valley Writers' Conference."

I'm Marcia Franklin.

Author Colum McCann doesn't take on easy subjects.

Whether it's a novel about people working and living in the New York City subway tunnels, or a true story about a mother whose son was murdered by terrorists, McCann delves into life's darker nooks and crannies.

But he also celebrates the light that can illuminate those corners, and the ties that bind seemingly disparate people together.

The author of 13 books, including "Apeirogon" and "Let the Great World Spin," which won the National Book Award, McCann is also the founder of "Narrative 4."

The international nonprofit uses the power of mutual storytelling to build relationships between young people from all kinds of backgrounds.

I caught up with Colum McCann at the 2025 Sun Valley Writers' Conference, where I first interviewed him in 2011.

We talked about his latest novel, "Twist," which braids the stories of two men on a ship that repairs underwater internet cables.

But I also wanted to know about what drives his seemingly irrepressible work ethic and sense of optimism.

Franklin: Well, welcome back to Idaho.

It's so great to have you here again.

McCann: It's so great to see you.

Thank you so much.

Franklin: We last spoke in 2011.

And since then, so much has happened.

I mean, internationally there's COVID, obviously.

I'm going to have to look at my notes because in your life I have down that you have written five books since then, an opera, a one-woman play, and traveled all over the world with your nonprofit, Narrative 4, including meeting the Pope.

McCann: Mmm hmm.

Franklin: I'm sure I've missed some things.

You have been, let's just put it -- a lot busier than I have been since 2011.

That's a lot.

McCann: It does seem like a long time ago, 2011.

I think, though, we're living in the exponential age and that things are happening so quickly.

It also feels to me that, you know, as a writer, there's so much to do, so much to say.

Um, and maybe sometimes I feel the job of the writer is to get at a form of repair.

And you want to try and find the still point where we can calm some of that quickness down and really start to look at ourselves, contemplate ourselves.

And I still believe in the power of stories and storytelling for us to engage with one another.

That you and I and everyone out there, we need to know each other.

Franklin: Some people hide from it.

And I talked to somebody yesterday who said, "I'm just not looking at the news."

McCann: Yeah.

Franklin: "I can't look at the news."

McCann: A lot of people are coming indoors.

They're closing the curtains, they're putting a GPS coordinate on their imagination and saying, "I will only remain in this one place."

I get it.

I understand it.

I actually sometimes want to do it myself.

But part of the problem is that we're coming indoors and isolating ourselves, and/or we're only staying with people who look like us or sound like us or vote like us.

We live in an age, I said earlier, it's the exponential age, but it's also the age of certainty in a weird way, which is kind of different.

You know, yes, everything's happened so quickly, but now also everybody wants to be entirely certain of what they think and who they are.

And this certainty leads to a sort of banality that, you know, just gets deeper and deeper and deeper.

And there are floodplains between us that we're not inhabiting.

But I do think that literature, theater, filmmaking, storytelling, all of these things will become the way that we can engage or reengage with one another.

Franklin: If they survive, which I assume they will because they have through other eras of challenge.

McCann: Yeah.

Well, you say something profoundly important, you know, "If they survive."

Now, you know, it's possible.

It's possible that say, books won't survive.

It's possible that opera, for instance, won't survive.

It's even possible that film won't survive.

But the one thing that is impossible and must go on is the idea of story.

And you can take away a lot of things, but you cannot take away a person's story.

So, one of the things that I've been working on with this nonprofit, Narrative 4, is getting young people to tell stories to one another and then to retell that story back to one another in the first person.

So you become me and I become you.

And in the process there's this great leap of empathy.

And we don't have to think alike.

You know, we don't have to be alike.

We, we actually don't even have to, you know, like or love one another.

But we must understand one another.

Franklin: It's not, it wouldn't be a secret or surprise to you that some people have said that this is way too earnest and you know, naive.

That simply, just, "Let's sit down and talk to each other and share each other's stories" is too "kumbaya."

McCann: Sure.

People call it too kumbaya, too airy.

And I get it.

I mean, there are times I even, I even, think so myself, until I see it work in person.

So if you can imagine a 16, 17-year-old young person in, in, uh, say in Boise, getting a chance to tell her story and suddenly feeling valuable.

But she tells somebody else's story at the same time; suddenly the universe opens and it's a really powerful thing.

Franklin: I'm thinking about Congress, though.

McCann: I would love to bring this to Congress.

Now, can you imagine that we, we, we get a group of Republicans and a group of Democrats to sit in a room together and, and, and do this?

And, and, and, and if we could, I promise you that it would change things.

You know, the whole principle of emergence, that we are greater than the sum of our parts, I'd like to apply that notion to the idea of storytelling.

Let's put all our stories together, and I'm sure that we can be more intelligent than our individual stories, and work like a flock of birds and work with one another.

Does that sound silly, naive, sentimental?

I'm prepared to put my heart on my sleeve and say that I can take any cynic on because I do believe that the world is dark.

I do believe that human nature tends sometimes towards some of the most terrible things, but I also believe that we have to have optimism or else we're not going to get out of this.

Franklin: Spoken like a true Irishman.

McCann: (Laughs.)

Maybe.

Franklin: Both sides.

McCann: Yeah.

Well, see, Ireland is an interesting…I mean, we have had a peace process since 1998, which means 27 years of peace in Ireland, which is a pretty extraordinary thing.

And I would say to you that if you'd come to me 40 years ago and said there was going to be peace in Ireland, I'd say, "You're crazy, you're out of your mind."

But the possible exists within the impossible.

And you know, walls come tumbling down.

The Berlin Wall came down.

There, there, you know, Israel is at peace with Egypt.

Who would've taught that in the early 1970s that there would be a peace agreement that's now 50 years old?

These things can happen.

It just takes, it takes a wealth of commitment from proper decent-minded people.

And you fail and you fail and you fail until you don't.

Franklin: One of the books that you wrote since I last saw you was "Apeirogon."

McCann: Right.

Franklin: And this is the theme, right?

McCann: Yes.

Franklin: And it's two men from, originally from a very interesting group I recommend people look into -- "Combatants for Peace."

McCann: Yeah.

Franklin: And you share their story.

One is a Palestinian man whose daughter was killed by an Israeli military person, and the other is an Israeli man whose daughter was killed by an Islamic suicide terrorist, bomber.

And these two men have become the best of friends… McCann: Against all the odds.

Franklin: Against all the odds.

Even still, after October 7th, I understand that they still talk to each other, and… McCann: They called each other on October the 7th.

Bassam said to Rami, "Come stay with me.

I'll protect you."

And then as things started to unfold differently, Rami called Bassam, "Come stay with me.

I'll protect you."

Franklin: It's a really, really interesting book, not the least of which because you're playing with the novel form in it at the same time that you're telling these two men's stories.

This story, though, is at the core of it, which is that two people who seemingly have just this deep, would have this deep well of hatred and animosity against each other, have come together.

And it's a very moving story.

McCann: It's extremely moving, and it's actually, I think, much more possible than we give it credit for.

I just think that we sow fear in our communities and we pretend that, that, that it's not going to be possible.

But I will say in relation to Israel and in relation to Palestine, that it's so much more nuanced than, than, than we're getting, or that we're allowing ourselves to hear.

Franklin: It's very, very dire though right now.

McCann: It's extremely dire right now.

Franklin: It's gone beyond… McCann: It's extremely dire right now.

Franklin: ...just talking.

McCann: Yes.

But give it some time.

Is there anything that we can, we can learn?

Rami and Bassam would both say peace is inevitable.

So who could have believed that 50 years after the Holocaust there would be an Israeli embassy in Bonn and that there would be a German embassy in Tel Aviv?

Seriously, who, who, how can you think of it?

It seems, seems an incredible thing to think about.

But it happened.

And so, I think with the force of human commitment and, and, and, and some agile thinking and some decency and some empathy, there's all sorts of things that are still possible.

Franklin: Another book that you wrote during, since I last saw you, "American Mother..." McCann: Right.

Franklin: …also looks at this -- I -- just unbelievable.

Diane Foley, the mother of James Foley.

All of us who are journalists know who James Foley was, decapitated by ISIS.

You're telling her story.

McCann: Right.

Franklin: And you spent so much time with her.

She actually met one of the people who was involved in her son's murder… McCann: Yeah.

Franklin: …and forgave him.

McCann: It was the most incredible moment.

Seven years after her son was killed, she went down to Virginia.

He was taken out of the prison cell that he was in.

We went to a courthouse, and we sat together for a total of three days.

And she talked to him.

She, they talked about religion, they talked about war, they talked about engagement, they talked about violence, they talked about Jim, they talked about journalism.

And in the end, um, they stood up and they shook hands with one another in this most extraordinary gesture of compassion and, and, and forgiveness.

And, you know, I think it's a lesson that the whole country -- or the whole world actually – needs to, needs to, to hear, because she listened and he listened.

And in the end then, they were able to have their differences, and, and, um, but still um, understand one another, which is amazing.

I knew I had to write about it.

Because it was one of the most extraordinary; it's a Shakespearean story really, when you think about it.

Franklin: That's why we need writers, so they can imagine options for us, and then we learn about them.

McCann: And I think that's really smart.

Thank you for saying that.

Because that is why we need writers, to parse some of these incredibly difficult emotional choices that we're trying to make and to, to look at the world for us and say, "Well, it's not so, so one-sided."

And also, you know, I do believe in this notion that there's not only one truth.

Sometimes there's a lot more than, than one truth.

And sometimes the opposite of a profound truth -- as Niels Bohr, the scientist, says -- can be another profound truth.

So I've just written a novel called "Twist," which is about technology and cables.

Franklin: Right.

We want to make sure to get to that.

McCann: Oh, yeah.

But, but, but the thing about is, people say, "Well, is technology good or is technology bad?"

Well, technology's good, yes, and I can make several arguments for it.

And technology's bad.

And how do you hold these two contradictory ideas in the palms of your hands at the exact same time?

As F. Scott Fitzgerald would've said, you know, that's the essence of intelligence to be able to do so.

It was fascinating to me to look at the world of underground, underwater cables and all the information that they carry about us and think, "Are these things; you know, what's going on in the world of technology?

Is this the new colonialism?"

Because everything that I send, you know, will travel down a tube, believe it or not, that's the size of a garden hose.

Um, and um, it's amazing to me that those hoses can get ruptured, they can get sabotaged.

And all the information in the world -- to me, it was a fantastic story that, eh, you know, eh, well, it hadn't really…it was difficult to do, and so people hadn't really written about it before.

How do you write about our lives traveling as light, in a tube, under the ocean?

Franklin: It ties into these, um, concepts of repair that we've been touching on.

McCann: Right.

Franklin: One is the story about very real boat that exists that you've been on… McCann: Right.

Franklin: …that repairs underwater internet cables that – you know, I'm like everybody else.

I thought before I read your book, McCann: Me, too.

Franklin: …it was all up in the satellites, all up in the sky.

But no, there are these very vulnerable cables under the sea.

And I've heard you say, you know, that another war could start from… McCann: Absolutely.

Franklin: Pirates or non-state actors or state actors cutting these things.

McCann: Well, guess what?

I just had the, I had the greatest publicity and marketing campaign organized for me by the Russian government and the Chinese government, who've recently began cutting cables in the Baltic Sea and in other places.

Cables are -- a lot of the military experts will say to you that the, that the next big war will begin underwater.

Why is that?

Because it will all be about information and disinformation.

You cut the cables, you cut the information that's coming in, and then you start to use disinformation as a form of warfare, a form of engagement.

And, um, that to me was fascinating.

But I thought that all our information went up in the cloud.

The – actually, the cloud lives at the bottom of the sea.

Franklin: And another part of -- another strand, so to speak – is, is, um, the two men, the characters on the boat -- one's a journalist, one directs all this repair… McCann: Yeah.

Franklin: …who have their own internal need for repair… McCann: That's right.

Franklin: …going on at the same time.

So what was it like to do that research on that boat that goes out and repairs these cables?

McCann: I like research.

I like people too, and I like places.

I don't want to tell the same story over and over and over again.

I enjoy getting out into the world, seeing what people are doing.

So it was great for me to go out to South Africa to, you know, meet these people who are on a boat, who go on these weekslong missions to repair cables that are four or five kilometers down at sea.

Now, you can't send a diver down that far.

You can only send a diver down a couple hundred meters at most.

You can't send a submersible down.

It goes to maximum a kilometer and a half, maybe two kilometers.

So, guess what you do?

You throw a rope over and you use a grappling hook.

Franklin: I thought it was amazing how old-fashioned… McCann: It's incredible.

Franklin: …all of this is.

It's like, how do you?

It's like a needle in a haystack.

I mean, there's got to be a better analogy… McCann: No, that's a perfect analogy.

Franklin: …a better pun or something like that, you know.

McCann: But it is a needle, and it is in that vast haystack of, of, of information.

Franklin: Then they just bring it up and they, like… McCann: Then they bring it together.

Franklin: …kluge it together again.

McCann: Yeah, there's -- fusion goes on and all this sort of thing.

But essentially, it's the same as it was 170 years ago when they laid the first telegraph cables.

Franklin: I did have to smile reading this, because of course, "Let the Great World Spin," there's a cable that (Philippe) Petit walked over between the Trade Towers.

And I'm a big fan of "This Side of Brightness," which is underground… McCann: Right.

Franklin: …in tunnels.

McCann: Yeah.

Franklin: Now you've got these -- you've got something going on… McCann: Yeah.

Franklin: …with, with wires and cables, and especially going underground.

McCann: I don't know what it is.

I mean, I could sit on any number of couches and talk to any number of psychologists or literary people or friends, and I would never be able to come up with an answer as to why I'm interested in these things.

Except they're all about journeys.

They're about the beginnings and, and, and ends, and yet everything is circular in between.

But I don't want to analyze myself.

I think it'd be too messy to get inside.

Franklin: Too deep, so to speak.

McCann: Too deep.

Too deep.

The bottom of the ocean.

Franklin: Well, my sense is that you're, you're interested in worlds that people don't normally see, get to see.

McCann: Right.

That's true.

Franklin: And a lot of that is subterranean.

McCann: Yeah, a lot of that is subterranean.

Franklin: And then of course, a lot of our emotions, and you know, as we're talking about the characters in this book have subterranean things they need to work on.

McCann: Imagine if we were able to go inside our own bodies and to travel around as almost… Franklin: Well, "Being John Malkovich" is one of my favorite movies.

McCann: Well, there you go.

Franklin: It's a very, very weird… McCann: Well, I'm sure in a few years they'll have computer chips that will float around our bodies and they'll show us exactly everything that's going on inside.

Franklin: Oh, yeah.

McCann: And then the outside will have to come to terms with what's going on.

Franklin: Our interview will be like this.

(Blinks) McCann: Oh, yeah, exactly.

That's Morse code.

Franklin: Morse, we'll just be blinking our interview to each other.

McCann: Well, that's binary, right?

Yeah.

Closed or open.

Closed or open.

Closed or open.

Isn't it amazing that, that, that, that the world, you know, operates on these binary codes?

1, 0, 0, 0 ,0, 1, 1, 1.

And that's how we get translated.

Right now at this moment, this interview is going out through tubes, through -- using binary code and using light that's flashing, pulsing billions of times per second.

To me, that's amazing.

It's beautiful.

It's profound, and it's also terrifying at the same time, too.

Franklin: So was this, was it kind of a palate cleanser in a way to do this book?

McCann: Yes.

Franklin: Because I mean "Apeirogon," "American Mother," that's heavy stuff.

McCann: Heavy stuff.

Franklin: I mean, this is, this is not un-heavy.

McCann: Right.

I mean, this is not light.

This is definitely heavier—you know, kind of Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness… McCann: But you're entirely right.

Franklin: ...influenced.

But I imagine it was a way to… McCann: But the funny thing is, I said, I said, after writing "Apeirogon," "I am going to write a simple story.

And it's going to be a love story.

And then we're all going to be grand."

And so, I get into this and I'm thinking about repair and human repair, and suddenly it gets dark for me.

It's like, "Oh no, these cables are not what I thought they were."

And this repair notion, what are we repairing?

Are we repairing things that will destroy us?

You know, and all these questions come into my head.

You know, I think maybe you can't escape it if you're really looking at the world and how dark it happens to be, but you must achieve some form of light, because light is the thing that you throw against the dark to crack it open in any sort of way.

Leonard Cohen, you know.

"There's a crack.

There's a crack in everything.

That's how the light gets through."

And I think that's really important.

I think it's really important for our kids now, too, and all these young people who see things in a dark way.

There's a lot of suicide going on with young people who just do not see any way out.

But for me, the way out is for them to be listened to, or for them to tell a story, or to listen to the stories of others.

Franklin: One of the things that has not happened since I last saw you almost 15 years ago, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, is that at the time, "Let the Great World Spin" was going to be made into a movie.

McCann: Yeah.

Franklin: Waa.

What happened?

McCann: I know.

Look, you know, it was supposed to be a movie.

It became this close to being a movie.

And then some other movies overtook it.

And we still talk about it being a movie.

But I'm writing a musical now.

And Sting, who's an incredible musician, has written a song called "Let the Great World Spin."

And we might do a musical together with, look, don't hold your breath.

You know, one of the great things that happened to me, though, recently was, um I wrote "American Mother," and then a person came along, a brilliant composer.

Her name is Charlotte Bray, and she said, "Would you like to make an opera out of "'American Mother'?"

I said, "I'd love to, but I know nothing, less than nothing about operas."

She said, "Well, you know, why don't you look at it and think about it?"

And so I looked at the structure of a libretto, which is like an epic poem.

And so I wrote a, a libretto and it just, just last month premiered in Germany.

Now, hopefully, eventually it'll come to the United States.

Maybe we can do it in the Opera House in Sun Valley at some stage.

Who knows?

Franklin: I hope so.

I, I, I read about it.

It's a daunting task to take a story like that… McCann: Right.

Franklin: …and, and turn it into anything else because it's so sobering.

McCann: Exactly.

Franklin: But it is uplifting as well because of Diane.

And I follow you on Instagram.

McCann: Oh, thank you.

Franklin: And so I saw that you were in Germany with Diane Foley.

And Instagram's kind of an interesting tool for authors if they want to use it.

I know some don't.

Um, are you worried about AI?

McCann: No.

it's a great question.

I mean, I suppose I should say, "I don't know."

But I think always down through history, we've always had these things that came along and said, "It's going to be the end of this."

It's going to be, you know, the, the, the, you know, printing machine is going to kill us.

The airplane is going to be used for nefarious purposes.

The internet, you know, is going to be the end of things.

You know, typing rather than writing physically is going to be the end.

I think there've been a lot of things.

I think there is a danger, there's an extreme danger in AI, but we need to shepherd it properly.

But to, to, to turn our backs and pretend that it doesn't exist would be the wrong thing to do.

It exists.

It's there.

Let's see what we can do to make it, help us make, you know, this place a better place to, to stand upon.

And I think that's possible.

Franklin: So AI books aren't going to put you out of business?

McCann: Oh, no.

Listen, I've asked AI to write a Seamus Heaney poem.

They can never write a Seamus Heaney poem like Seamus would've written it.

They can echo it, but they can never write the new one that will break through to, to, to, to a place of such extreme human beauty.

I mean, I might be wrong, but I really believe that, that, that the human spirit triumphs in the end.

Franklin: As we close, there's, there's, you know, kind of perennial waves of commentary about the death of literature, the death of novels.

You have written, though, that you think that, um, novelists are not as important as they were 50 years ago, and that, "So much writing nowadays seems to suffer from a reduced moral authority."

McCann: Yeah.

Franklin: "Nobody fears what we have to say.

We've allowed our voices to be devalued in favor of comfort."

McCann: Right.

Franklin: So are you feeling as if most writers are not taking enough chances?

Is that what it is?

Or not, not pushing the margins, or not speaking up enough?

McCann: I like to dilate the nostrils of people.

That's a pretty extraordinary, you know, extreme statement for me to say that we have a reduced moral authority.

But I kind of want to like, get the back up of some of these younger writers to say, "What are you talking about?

You're out of your mind.

I'm going to show you."

I do want writers, I think -- younger writers in particular -- to engage more with what's going on in front of us.

Be a little bit angry, you know, knock people off balance a little bit more.

There's a lot of bad stuff going on and being said in our name; we got to call it out.

We got to stand up in front of it.

And, and books have an extraordinary power that is sometimes more powerful than some of the things that, that, that governments and you know, small-minded officials can do, in that you can access something profound.

So, I call on young writers to, to, to get in there and scuff it up a bit.

Franklin: Fair enough.

I hope to see you again in another… McCann: I hope to see you again in another 15 years.

Or sooner.

Franklin: Thank you -- or sooner.

Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me again.

It's been a pleasure, as it was before.

McCann: My pleasure.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate it very much.

Franklin: You've been listening to author Colum McCann, whose latest book is "Twist."

Our conversation was recorded at the 2025 Sun Valley Writers' Conference.

My thanks to conference organizers for all their help, and for inviting us back to the renowned event, where we've been recording conversations since 2005.

If you'd like to watch this one again, or any of the more than 80 conversations, go to the Idaho Public Television YouTube page.

For Idaho Public Television, I'm Marcia Franklin.

Thanks for joining us.

(Music) Major funding is provided by the Idaho Public Television Endowment and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.