Novelists such as Colm Tóibín and Naomi Alderman are breathing new life into the gospels.
		
	 
	
		
			
				
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			 / 15 January 2010
			
		
		Hilary Mantel’s Man Booker-winning <em>Wolf Hall</em> was up for the Costa Novel Award, but Colm Tóibín’s <em>Brooklyn</em> got the nod.
		
	 
	
		
		Three hundred years ago Samuel Johnson declared that "no man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money". Irish novelist Colm Toibin afrees.