In 1996, a small Irish press approached Nuala O'Faolain, then a writer for The Irish Times, to publish a collection of her opinion columns. She offered to compose an introduction for the volume, and that undertaking blossomed into an "accidental memoir of a Dublin woman" and a book called Are You Somebody? that was published around the world and embraced so wholeheartedly in the U.S. that it reached the number-one position on the New York Times bestseller list and launched Nuala O'Faolain on a new career. Hailed universally for her unflinching eye, her wisdom, and her boldness, Are You Somebody? took readers from O'Faolain's harrowing childhood, through decades defined by passion and a ferocious hunger for experience, to a middle age notable for its unbroken solitude and longing.
