Writer Colum McCann – .
Colum McCann, an Irish writer who has lived in New York for years, was received yesterday by Pope Francis in a private audience together with Rami Elhanan and Bassam Aramin, the first Israeli and the second Palestinian, two fathers who lost their daughters in the conflict in the Middle East, and who carry forward a message of peace and reconciliation. Their story became Apeirogon (Feltrinelli), a novel that won the Terzani Prize in 2022 and was also the focus of a meeting at the recent Meeting in Rimini. Together with them, Francis, who had already met Elhanan and Aramin during a general audience in March, spoke with Nadine Quomsieh, secretary general of the Parents Circle, the association to which the two fathers belong and which spreads a message of mutual respect between the two peoples in conflict in Israel and the Palestinian Territories, involving over 700 parents – Jews, Palestinians, Christians and Muslims – who have lost a child in the war.
“I stayed out of this book. The focus was on Diane, not on me. And the heart of this story is the relationship between forgiveness and compassion.” Colum McCann is keen to make things clear at the start of the conversation. His new volume, A mother (Feltrinelli), in bookstores today, tells the story of Diane Foley and her son James, an American journalist kidnapped and killed years ago by Isis. A story, magnificently told, that deals with a tangle of human dimensions: the desperation for the loss of a son, the anger for the inaction of public authorities in the face of the safety of a hostage, the Christian faith that shapes Diane’s view of what happened in her life, the reconciliation that she seeks when she meets one of her son’s killers, beheaded and brandished as a sacrificial victim by a band of bloodthirsty extremists. Colum McCann will tell A mother at the Festivaletteratura in Mantua on Thursday 5 September with Francesca Mannocchi.
Why did you decide to tell the story of James Foley and his mother Diane?
Exactly 10 years ago, just a few days ago (August 19, ed.), James was killed by ISIS men in Syria, where he was working as a journalist, his vocation and his work. That same day, some friends sent me a photo of James on their cell phone while he was working as a reporter in Afghanistan. In a moment of relaxation, he was reading my novel Let the Great World Spin. In practice, in one hand I had the newspaper with the photo of James killed and in the other the cell phone with the shot that portrayed him while he was reading my most famous novel. Within a few days, I wrote to Foley’s mother to tell her that I wanted to meet her. I received no response. Two months later, I read in the New York Times that Diane Foley had signed a contract to write a book about the story of the kidnapping and killing of her son. “Well, he won’t need me anymore,” I said to myself, even though my office was clearly marked by a photo of James with my novel in his hand and wearing a bulletproof vest. But seven years later (McCann emphasizes the fact by making the number 7 gesture! Ed.) I was giving a zoom presentation of my book Apeirogon: among the participants who were connected was also Diane. She later contacted me to tell me that she hadn’t been able to write her book, apologizing for never having responded to my email. I offered to help her tell her story, not to make a book out of it, that wasn’t my intention right away. And she accepted. So I left to spend two days with her and her husband John: they hosted me at their home, they gave me Jim’s room, I spoke with them for a long time. Diane confided in me: “You remind me of James.” And she told me that it was her intention to meet one of her son’s killers.
And what did she do?
I told her that if she wanted, I could go with her to that meeting. And so it was two months later. At the time, I wasn’t sure whether I was going to turn all this into a book: I just wanted to help Diane tell her story. And she filled me in on so many things, some of which were close to home: for example, she told me that she had heard from the kidnappers who were in captivity with James, and who came back alive, that her son and his fellow prisoners were telling each other their favorite novels, during the long days when they were locked up who knows where. And he summarized my Let the World Turn for them. Then I accompanied Diane to the courthouse, where she met Alexanda Kotey, the ISIS member who was on trial for the murder of James Foley. And while she was waiting for us, Kotey was reading Patrick Radden Keefe’s book, Say Nothing (Mondadori), about an event in Northern Ireland. And on the cover was a quote from me. The second time we went to court, Kotey had in his hand the text Mission End (Einaudi) by Phil Klay, a former marine and my student. I almost felt called.
Who has Diane Foley become for you?
Diane is a friend to me, in a certain sense a mother and a sister. What struck me about her was her tenacity in never giving up on her intent: to get to the bottom of her son’s story and to be convinced of the goodness of the idea of knowing his killers, to the point of forgiving them. What she did, in the second and ultimately final meeting – the handshake with Kotey – did not surprise me, I felt that it would end that way. But seeing that gesture, there, in person, was something wonderful. I think it was seeing the occurrence of a gesture of faith, a faith articulated in life.
In the book, Diane Foley shows a very strong attachment to the Christian faith. As a young woman, she says, she almost thought about becoming a nun. Prayer accompanies her days. She feels moved by the Holy Spirit in some choices. A person for whom faith is not something ritual but something existential, personal…
In the book, almost from every page, the convinced and mature Christian faith of Diane Foley shines through. She tells it with great modesty, respect and participation. I tried, in the narration, to articulate this essential dimension of hers, without falling into dogmatism or theology, even if it was not easy. The feeling of Diane Foley’s faith is truly striking. Her Christian faith is admirable and remarkable. As a non-practicing person, I am, I would say, jealous of her religious faith.
The book ends with an almost unreal scene: the mother of a brutally murdered man holding the hand of one of her son’s killers. Is forgiveness the path to justice?
Diane Foley is very clear about this in her text: that you can’t get to justice through revenge. She didn’t ask the murderer of her son James, Alexanda Kotey, to apologize for what she did. But she was the one who went to meet that man: she looked for him, she wanted to meet him, she spoke to him. And I remember those moments well: when Diane approached Kotey, he, with an imperceptible gesture of his head, looked at me questioningly. Almost as if he wanted confirmation of the doubt whether or not to accept this outstretched hand. And then he shook Diane’s hand.
