'Imagine Ireland' at book festival

A lot of people enjoy listening to an Irish brogue, regardless of what’s being said.

When the accented speaker has something of worth and weight to say, the listener becomes even more enchanted. Such should be the case Saturday evening at the Paramount Theater when the Virginia Festival of the Book presents “Imagine Ireland” with Anne Enright, Kathleen Hill, Kevin Holohan and Colm Toibin.

These celebrated writers will be reading from their works. Toibin is the author of “The Empty Family Stories,” “Brooklyn,” “The Master” and others. He is the Leonard Milberg Lecturer in Irish Letters at Princeton University.

Enright is the author of “The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch,” “Yesterday’s Weather” (short stories) and “The Gathering,” which won the Man Booker Prize in 2007. She lives in Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland.

Hill is the author of “Still Waters in Niger” and most recently “Who Occupies This House: A Novel.” She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College in New York.

Holohan’s short stories have appeared in the Sunday Tribune and Whispers and Shouts. His poetry has appeared in Studies, Casablanca, Envoi and Poetry Ireland. His first novel, “The Brothers’ Lot,” has just been released.

The 17th annual Virginia Festival of the Book, produced by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, runs through Sunday. Saturday evening’s Imagine Ireland program at the Paramount was made possible through a grant from Culture Ireland.

Imagine Ireland, a yearlong celebration of Irish arts, will present more than 400 events in 40 states. Art forms being represented include film, dance, theater, music, literature and visual arts.

“I’m extremely excited about this event,” said Nancy Damon, program director of the book festival. “Colm Toibin and Anne Enright are two of the most famous living Irish writers.

“From my viewpoint, Culture Ireland selected us to have this program because they knew we had done some good Irish programming in the past. There are a limited number of programs across the country throughout the year, and we’re honored to have been chosen for one of them.”

Holohan was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, where his new novel takes place. He now lives in Brooklyn.

Holohan believes there’s a special bond that links Ireland and the United States together. Certainly one of the shared commonalities of the two countries is a love of the arts, which Imagine Ireland celebrates.

“I think Imagine Ireland is an extraordinary thing,” Holohan said recently during a telephone interview. “It shows people that there’s an incredible diversity of contemporary art going on.

“Its purpose is to promote an awareness of the depth and breadth of current Irish art.”

Holohan will be reading from his new novel, which is set in a boys’ school in Dublin.

“It’s a school called the Brothers of Godly Coercion School for Young Boys of Meager Means, so we’re in kind of a satirical mode,” Holohan said with a note of levity in his voice. “It takes place anytime during the 1950s to the 1970s.

“I went through Christian brothers education in Dublin, and it’s based very lightly on that. It’s kind of gothically exaggerated for the purpose of satire, and tends to go big.

“I have heard from friends who have gone through parochial schools here in the United States that the similarities are very striking.”

Hill said she is planning to read “a snatch” from both her books. She said her most recent novel, “Who Occupies This House,” is a story about how people from other places become Americans.

“It’s a story about people who lived for four generations in the same house in a town outside New York City,” Hill said. “They are all Irish-Americans, and much of the novel is based on letters, notebooks and journals left in the house.

“It is fiction, but it is based on my own family history. Fiction is a way of getting closest to the characters, to move into the interior of their lives and not have to remain on the outside entirely.

“The story involves most centrally my grandmother and grandfather, who I never knew, because they had already died by the time I was born. My generation was the last to grow up in the house.”

Hill’s first novel, “Still Waters in Niger,” was nominated for the Dublin IMPAC Award. “Who Occupies This House” was selected as an Editors’ Choice by the New York Times.

Hill teaches writing, but has an interesting way of doing it.

“What I really teach is reading, because I think how you learn to write is by reading, reading, reading,” Hill said. “I teach my students as best I can to love reading.

“I think reading is a consolation in the world. And writing is a consolation, as difficult as it is. It seems like a response in some way to the world.”

The Virginia Festival of the Book will present “Imagine Ireland with Anne Enright, Kathleen Hill, Kevin Holohan and Colm Toibin” at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Paramount Theater.

Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at www.vabook.org, which also has a full schedule of events.