Colum McCann in conversation at Bangalow

FICTION fans are in for a treat with the acclaimed, award-winning Irish writer Colum McCann in an exclusive evening discussing his latest novel, Twist, in Bangalow on May 7.

The powerfully realist novel explores men at sea and the world under the ocean, and is a meditation on the nature of narrative and truth from one of this era’s great storytellers.

Protagonist Anthony Fennell is an Irish journalist and playwright assigned to cover the underwater cables that carry the world’s information, the sum of human existence – words, images, transactions, memes, voices, viruses – travelling through tiny fibre-optic tubes.

Fennell’s journey uncovers a story about the raw human labour behind the dazzling veneer of the technological world. In Africa he meets a fellow Irishman, John Conway, the chief of mission on a cable repair ship.

When the ship is sent to repair a series of major underwater breaks, both men learn that the broken cables carry the news that may cause their lives to unravel.

In Twist, McCann interrogates the most elemental and universal questions of life, love, absence, belonging, and the perils of our severed connections.

From this oceanic oculus, the author asks if we can reweave ourselves out of the thin, broken threads of our pasts in our fractured world.

McCann is famed for the novels Apeirogon, TransAtlantic, Let the Great World Spin, Zoli, Dancer, This Side of Brightness, and Songdogs.

A regular contributor to The New York Times, he co-founded the global non-profit organisation Narrative 4, which uses storytelling to propel community action and change in 42 countries. He is a Dublin Literary Prize and a USA National Book Award winner.

Journalist and broadcaster Mick O’Regan joins McCann in conversation at the Bangalow A&I Hall at 6.30pm. Doors open at 5.30pm for pocket curries and bar.

For information and tickets, visit events.humanitix.com/colum-McCann-2025 .