Irish Author Colum McCann Attacked in Connecticut

Famed Irish novelist Colum McCann was attacked in a New Haven, Connecticut, hotel on June 28, an assault that sent him to the hospital and forced him to miss a speaking engagement.

McCann, author of the National Book Award-winning Let the Great World Spin, was in New Haven to speak at Southern Connecticut State University at an event hosted by Narrative 4, the organization McCann helped found to “promote empathy through the exchange of stories.”

McCann didn’t make his Sunday appearance, because on Saturday night he reportedly attempted to play the Good Samaritan by stepping into an altercation between a woman and a man outside New Haven’s The Study at Yale hotel.

Police arrived just after 10:00 p.m. on Saturday, June 28, and found the author bleeding from a head wound. He had apparently been knocked to the sidewalk during the altercation.

By Wednesday, July 2, it seemed that police were officially thinking that the man whom McCann confronted was his assailant.

Officer David Hartman of the New Haven Police Department said that investigators had found “significant leads.”

“What we believe happened is that the victim tried to intercede in what appeared to be a domestic dispute between a man and a woman,” Assistant Police Chief Archie Generoso said. “He saw a woman pushed to the ground. He tried to assist the woman. He asked the woman if she wanted him to call the police. He urged her to do so. She said she didn’t want to call the police. The guy said, ‘It’s your decision.’ He turned around, began to walk away, and he was assaulted.”

The author has chosen not to make a public statement at this time.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.