I imagined lamplight, shadows, soft voices, clothes put away, the low sound of late news on the radio. And I thought as I crossed the bridge at Baggot Street to face the last stretch of my own journey home that no matter what I had done, I had not done that.' In the captivating stories that make up "The Empty Family", Colm Toibin delineates with a tender and unique sensibility lives of unspoken or unconscious longing, of individuals, often willingly, cast adrift from their history. From the young Pakistani immigrant who seeks some kind of permanence in a strange town to the Irish woman reluctantly returning to Dublin and discovering a city that refuses to acknowledge her long absence each of Toibin's stories manage to contain whole worlds: stories of fleeing the past and returning home, of family threads lost and ultimately regained.

科尔姆·托宾是具有国际声誉的爱尔兰当代著名作家。他一九五五年生于爱尔兰东南部一个积极投身爱尔兰独立运动的家庭，毕业于都柏林大学，主修历史和英文。

自一九九〇年发表处女作小说《南方》以来，托宾已出版六部长篇小说、两部部短篇小说集、一部戏剧和多部游记、散文集。《黑水灯塔船》、《大师》先后入围布克奖决选名单，后者荣获IMPAC都柏林国际文学奖（2006）。《布鲁克林》获二〇〇九年度英国科斯塔最佳小说奖。

托宾的作品主要描写爱尔兰社会、移居他乡者的生活、个人身份与性取向的探索与坚持等。他文笔优雅恬淡，内敛含蓄，被誉为“英语文学中的语言大师”。

托宾先后在斯坦福大学、得克萨斯大学、普林斯顿大学教授写作。从二〇一一年九月开始，他接替马丁•艾米斯，担任曼彻斯特大学创意写作教授。二〇一一年，英国《观察家报》将其选入“英国最重要的三百位知识分子”。目前，托宾担任哥伦比亚大学英文与比较文学系梅隆讲席教授。