Critic, Playwright, Poet, and Bestselling Author Colm Tóibín discusses his book, “Long Island,” with Silas House, Bestselling Author, Playwright, and a Kentucky Poet Laureate. The discussion takes place before a live audience at the Kentucky Author Forum and was recorded on April 14, 2025, at The Kentucky Center in Louisville.

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Colm Tóibín is the author of eleven novels, including Long Island, an Oprah’s Book Club Pick. Tóibín’s Brooklyn was adapted into an Academy Award-nominated major motion picture starring Saoirse Ronan. Long Island is the quietly heartbreaking sequel, exploring societal pressures and expectations, longing, regret, secrets, and desire. Eilis Lacey’s return to Ireland in mid-life provides the backdrop for a nuanced and exquisite examination of personal choice and destiny.

Tóibín also authored The Magician, winner of the Rathbones Folio Prize; The Master, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Brooklyn, winner of a Costa Book Award; The Testament of Mary; and Nora Webster; as well as two story collections and several books of criticism. He is the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University and was named the Laureate for Irish Fiction for 2022–2024 by the Arts Council of Ireland. Tóibín has been shortlisted three times for the Booker Prize, and has won the IMPAC award. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books.