Long Island

For the first Entre Nous event of the rentrée, the American Library in Paris, the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination and the Columbia Global Paris Center will host at Reid Hall a conversation between two of the great contemporary literary voices: Colm Tóibín and Guadalupe Nettel, on the occasion of the French publication of Toíbín’s latest novel, Long Island. The book tells the story of Eilis Lacey —the complex and enigmatic heroine of Brooklyn, one of Tóibín’s most acclaimed books— twenty years later, in a moving and tense story of secrecy, misunderstanding, and love.

Following the discussion, both authors will answer questions from the audience and sign books.

Colm Tóibín was born in Enniscorthy in 1955. He is the author of 11 novels, including The Master, Brooklyn, The Testament of Mary, Nora Webster, House of Names, and The Magician. His work has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times and has won the Costa Novel Award and the IMPAC Award. He has also published two collections of stories and numerous works of non-fiction. He is the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities in the Department of English and Comparative Literature.

Guadalupe Nettel is a Mexican writer, author of award-winning novels and collections of short stories translated into more than twenty languages, including The Body Where I was Born, After the Winter, and Still Born. She has received many awards for her fiction, including the Premio de Narrativa Breve Ribera del Duero and the Herralde Prize, one of the highest honors in hispanophone literature, and is a frequent contributor to El Pais, The New York Times, and La Repubblica. In 2008 he earned a PhD in Literature from the EHESS in Paris in 2008. Her work has been adapted into theater and film. She is currently a Fellow at the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination.