. >> colum mccann is here, he came from the united states from his native ireland in 198 sick, his ambition was to live in america and write a novel, seven books later his novel let the great world spin won the national book award in 2009, his new novel is called tran atlantic, transatlantic, it expanse two continents and blends the real with the imagined i am proud to have colum mccann at this table, welcome. >> i am so happy to be here. >> let me just confess, i am in love with this because of characters i know on the one hand, characters i am familiar with, and ireland. >> this is such an old question, but. >> rose: what what does it mean to be irish? >> that's the original question. that's what we are asking ourselves all along. i mean, i suppose what it is that obviously we have this age shun and deep history, and we have an ability to sing and an ability to tell a story and an ability, i suppose, to live our lives out loud, and nothing quite like that and the irish go everywhere, and we seem to embrace a lot of different experience. also, we have that sort of lurking sadness around. i

. >> woodruff: and jeffrey brown talks with author colum mccann about weaving together three real-life atlantic crossings over three centuries in his latest work of fiction. >> what was it like to construct that, as a novelist, did you know how all these connections were going to happen? >> honestly? >> honestly. >> i had no clue whatsoever, it drove me nuts. ( laugh ) >> ifill: that's all ahead on tonight's "newshour." >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: there remained more questions than answers today about the weekend crash of a south korean jetliner in san francisco. investigators searched for a

. >> woodruff: and jeffrey brown talks with author colum mccann about weaving together three real-life atlantic crossings over three centuries in his latest work of fiction. >> what was it like to construct that, as a novelist, did you know how all these connections were going to happen? >> honestly? >> honestly. >> i had no clue whatsoever, it drove me nuts. ( laugh ) >> ifill: that's all ahead on tonight's "newshour." >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: there remained more questions than answers today about the weekend crash of a south korean jetliner in san francisco. investigators searched for a cause as emergency officials wondered aloud how nearly everyone on board su

the fiery train crash in canada; also, egypt's deadly clashes; china's cyber spying and novelist colum mccann. but first, with the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: another fatal air crash was under investigation today in alaska. an air taxi went down sunday at a small airport, killing all ten people on board. the plane apparently was taking off, about 75 miles southwest of anchorage, when it crashed and exploded into flames. there was no immediate word on the cause. the man who leaked details of u.s. government surveillance has been heard from again. a british newspaper today posted comments that edward snowden made before washington began efforts to capture and prosecute him. the statements are from the interview snowden gave in hong kong last month, to london's "guardian" newspaper. in it, he insists he was motivated only by his concern that surveillance has gone too far. >> i don't want to live in a world where everything that i say, everything i do, everyone i talk to, every expression of creativity or love or friendship is recorded. and that's not something