On Thursday, October 7, Nuala O'Faolain, author of "Are You Somebody? The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman" (1998), will speak about what it means to be an Irish woman and writer. The 8 p.m. program, in Lovejoy 100 of Colby College, is open to the public free of charge. Copies of her book will be for sale during a reception following the reading.

"Are You Somebody?", which spent 20 weeks atop the New York Times best-seller list, is a moving and fascinating portrait of both Ireland and O'Faolain, one of Ireland's most popular and respected commentators. The book is a vivid journey through the life of a Dublin woman. "Are You Somebody?" began as the introduction to a collection of 10 years of O'Faolain's Irish Times columns, a collection that also led Ireland's best-seller list.

O'Faolain has been a university professor, moved into educational and later general programming at the BBC and in Ireland, and finally became one of the first female columnists at Ireland's most respected newspaper. She currently lives in Dublin. The center of her story is the enduring impact of her unhappy childhood and her search, in middle age as in youth, for love, satisfaction and meaning in an often lonely life.

O'Faolain's reading is part of Colby's 1999-2000 Visiting Writers Series.