The novel space is a pure space. I'm nobody once I go into that

Colm Tóibín, teller of truths through story, once spoke these words of humility and power: “The novel space is a pure space. I'm nobody once I go into that room. I'm not gay, I'm not bald, I'm not Irish. I'm not anybody. I'm nobody. I'm the guy telling the story, and the only person that matters is the person reading that story, the target. It's to get that person to feel what I'm trying to dramatize.” In these lines lies the sacred essence of creation: that the artist must vanish so the art may live, and that the storyteller’s highest calling is not self-display but communion with the reader’s heart.

The meaning of this saying is profound. In daily life we are wrapped in our identities—our nationality, our appearance, our history, our burdens. These labels cling like garments, shaping how the world sees us and how we see ourselves. Yet in the novel space, these garments are stripped away. The writer becomes nobody, a voice without body, without limitation, a vessel through which story flows. It is a sacred surrender: the ego vanishes so that the tale may shine. The pure space of fiction demands not the author’s self, but the truth of human experience, carried to the one who reads.

This idea echoes the ancient traditions of storytelling. The bards of Ireland, the rhapsodes of Greece, the griots of Africa—none told stories to glorify themselves. They were channels of memory, voices of the people, instruments through which myth and wisdom flowed. Homer himself, in the opening of the Iliad, calls upon the Muse to sing through him, for he knew that he was but a mouthpiece of something larger. In the same way, Tóibín declares: in the novel space, the writer disappears, and only the story and the listener remain.

History provides vivid examples of this truth. Consider Anne Frank, whose diary, written in hiding, has become one of the most powerful works of the twentieth century. Anne was a young girl, marked by her Jewish identity and condemned by the brutality of her age. Yet in the pure space of her writing, she became simply a human voice speaking to other humans. Her story was not about being “Jewish” or “female” or “young” alone, but about the shared longing for freedom, hope, and dignity. In her pages, she became nobody and everybody—a storyteller whose words pierced generations.

Tóibín’s words also speak to the intimacy of writing. The target is not a crowd, but a single reader. The great paradox of literature is that though thousands may read the same book, each feels as though the author whispers directly to them. This is the sacred bond of the novel space—not fame, not applause, but the secret communion between writer and reader, the silent bridge across time and distance where hearts meet in story.

O children of tomorrow, take this wisdom to heart: when you tell your story, do not adorn it with the vanity of self. Do not demand that the reader admire you, pity you, or exalt you. Instead, vanish into the tale. Become nobody so that your story may become everybody. Seek not your own glory, but the awakening of feeling in the one who listens. For the measure of art is not the fame of the maker, but the fire it kindles in the soul of another.

Therefore, the lesson is clear: to create truly, one must step aside. In the pure space of art, ego dissolves and story remains. Practice humility, surrender to truth, and write not to be seen, but to help another see. Read not to judge the author, but to hear the music of human experience rising through them. For in this vanishing, the storyteller becomes eternal, and the story itself becomes the living breath of humanity.

Thus, Colm Tóibín’s words are not only about writing but about life itself: greatness lies not in shouting who we are, but in offering something that touches the soul of another. To be nobody in the act of creation is to become a vessel for eternity.