Reading by Colm Tóibín
February 21 @ 4:30 pm - 6:00 pm
FreeInternational bestselling and award-winning writer Colm Tóibín reads from his work as part of the 2024-25 Fund for Irish Studies Series. Tóibín is the author of 11 novels including Long Island, The Heather Blazing, Nora Webster, House of Names, The Blackwater Lightship (shortlisted for the BookerPrize), The Master, and Brooklyn, which was made into a film starring Saoirse Ronan that garnered four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture.
The Fund for Irish Studies Series is co-chaired by Jane Cox, Director of Princeton’s Program in Theater & Music Theater, and Robert Spoo, Princeton’s Leonard L. Milberg ’53 Professor in Irish Letters.
Tickets & Details
The reading is free and open to the public; advance tickets required.
Get free tickets through University Ticketing
Directions
Get directions to the James Stewart Film Theater, located on the first floor at 185 Nassau Street.
Accessibility
The James Stewart Film Theater is an accessible venue. Visit our Venues and Studios section for accessibility information at our various locations. Guests in need of access accommodations are invited to contact the Lewis Center at 609-258-5262 or email LewisCenter@princeton.edu at least one week in advance of the event date.
About Colm Tóibín
The Irish writer Colm Tóibín grew up in a home where, he once said, there was “a great deal of silence”. He has since made a career of talking to the world through his many volumes of fiction and non-fiction, drama, and poetry.
The newest of Tóibín’s eleven novels is Long Island (Simon & Schuster, May 7, 2024). A New York Times bestseller, the book was chosen for Oprah’s Book Club and received star reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Booklist. In their rave review the Star Tribune called the novel “a wonder, rich with yearning and regret.” Long Island continues the story of Eilis Lacey, first introduced in his acclaimed novel Brooklyn.
An international bestseller, Brooklyn is the unforgettable story a young Irish immigrant and the complications surrounding love and family which she finds in the early 1950s. Brooklyn was given the Costa Novel Award, while The Observer named it one of “The 10 best historical novels.” In 2019, the book was ranked 51st on The Guardian‘s list of the 100 best books of the 21st century. In 2015, Tóibín’s celebrated novel was turned into a film starring Saoirse Ronan which garnered four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture.
Tóibín is also the author of The Heather Blazing, Nora Webster, House of Names, and The Blackwater Lightship. The latter was shortlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Prize and the Booker Prize, and it was later made into a film starring Angela Lansbury.
His fifth novel, The Master, is a fictional account of the inner life of the American writer Henry James. It was awarded the International Dublin Literary Award, Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, Stonewall Book Award, and Lambda Literary Award. The New Yorker noted the novel’s portrait of a creative mind at work struck other writers as uncanny, while Cynthia Ozick praised Tóibín’s “writer’s wizardry.” Tóibín’s devotion to James led him to author All A Novelist Needs: Colm Tóibín on Henry James, a collection of critical essays.
More recently, Tóibín’s longtime interest in the German writer Thomas Mann led him to write The Magician, a New York Times Notable Book which was named the Best Book of the Year by NPR, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. Time magazine stated, Tóibín had crafted “a complex but empathetic portrayal of a writer in a lifelong battle against his innermost desires, his family, and the tumultuous times they endure.” The Magician was given the Rathbones Folio Prize.
Tóibín’s literary conversation with the world explores a number of significant themes: the nature of Irish society, living in exile, the legacy of Catholicism, the process of creativity, and the preservation of personal identity, especially when confronted by loss.
Colm Tóibín (pronounced “cuh-lem toe-bean”) is many things—not only a novelist, but also a short story writer, essayist, journalist, critic, playwright and poet. Among his works of non-fiction are The Modern Library: the 200 Best Novels Since 1950 (with Carmen Callil), a book on the Irish revival, Lady Gregory’s Toothbrush, New Ways to Kill Your Mother: Writers and Their Families, Love in a Dark Time: And Other Explorations of Gay Lives and Literature, and A Guest at the Feast: Essays. His 2015 book, On Elizabeth Bishop, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. Among the books he has edited is The Penguin Book of Irish Fiction. His book of poetry is titled Vinegar Hill. His newest work of non-fiction is On James Baldwin (Brandeis University Press, August 2, 2024), on the works of James Baldwin and their influence on his writing.
Over the years, Tóibín’s plays have been staged in Ireland and on Broadway. The Testament of Mary, which Tóibín based on his novella of the same name, was nominated for three Tony Awards, including Best Play.
Tóibín has been honored with the E. M. Forster Award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Irish PEN Award for contribution to Irish literature, Dayton Literary Peace Prize Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award, Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement, Premio Malaparte (Italy), Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award, David Cohen Prize for Literature, and the Bodley Medal. In 2022 the Arts Council of Ireland appointed him Laureate for Irish Fiction 2022-2024. In 2024 he received the Medal of Honor for Achievement in Literature from the National Arts Club.
Tóibín is Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He has curated exhibits for the Morgan Library & Museum in Manhattan, and, with his agent, Peter Straus, runs a small publishing imprint in Dublin, Tuskar Rock Press.
Colm Tóibín lives in Ireland and the United States.
