Colum McCann's Intertexts: Books Talk to One Another

The intertext is the effective presence of a text in another one. This relation of co-presence between texts is the subject of the present essay. Colum McCann's work is studied here as a mosaic of references to and quotations from other texts. Various modes of intertextuality – influence, intentionality, authority – are analyzed here and applied to McCann's complete work. His novels and short stories denote a transposition of texts taken from the Bible or Irish mythology, but also Anglo-Saxon novels, plays or poems. Through McCann's work, the present study highlights the articulation and interdependence of literary texts.