Maggie O'Farrell | |
|---|---|
 Maggie at 2025 Edinburgh International Book Festival | |
| Born | 1972 (age 52–53) Coleraine,County Londonderry, Northern Ireland |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Alma mater | New Hall, Cambridge |
| Genre | Fiction, historical fiction |
| Notable works |
|
| Spouse | William Sutcliffe |
| Children | 3 |
| Website | |
| maggieofarrell | |
Maggie O'FarrellFRSL (born 1972) is a novelist fromNorthern Ireland. Her acclaimed first novel,After You'd Gone, won theBetty Trask Award and a later one,The Hand That First Held Mine, the 2010Costa Novel Award. She has twice been shortlisted since for the Costa Novel Award forInstructions for a Heatwave in 2014 andThis Must Be The Place in 2017. Her memoirI Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death reached the top of theSunday Times bestseller list. Her novelHamnet won theWomen's Prize for Fiction in 2020, the fiction prize at the 2020National Book Critics Circle Awards, and was co-adapted for the screen withChloe Zhao in 2025. Her 2022 historical novelThe Marriage Portrait was shortlisted for the 2023 Women's Prize for Fiction.
Maggie O'Farrell was born in 1972[1] inColeraine,County Londonderry,Northern Ireland. Her father was an academic, and the family moved around when she was a child, so she spent her childhood inDublin,Wales, andScotland.[2] At the age of eight she was hospitalised withencephalitis, and missed over a year of school.[3] She was at first unable to hold a pen or a book, and was told that she would never walk again, but after two years of intensive rehabilitation, she started to walk. She says that it was this period that fostered her love of literature.[2] These events are echoed inThe Distance Between Us and described in her 2017 memoirI Am, I Am, I Am.[4]
She was educated atNorth Berwick High School andBrynteg Comprehensive School, and then atNew Hall, University of Cambridge (nowMurray Edwards College), where she read English Literature.[5][2] O'Farrell has stated that well into the 1990s, being Irish in Britain could be fraught. "We used to get endless Irish jokes, even from teachers. It wasn't funny at all". Nevertheless, not until 2013'sInstructions for a Heatwave did Irish subjects become part of her work.[6]
O'Farrell worked as a journalist, first for a computer magazine inHong Kong,[2] and then on the arts desk ofThe Independent on Sunday inLondon. During this time, she participated in several writing workshops, including with the poetsJo Shapcott andMichael Donaghy.[2]
She also taught creative writing at theUniversity of Warwick in Coventry andGoldsmiths College in London.[citation needed][when?]
O'Farrell's numerous successful novels, including theCosta Award-winningThe Hand that First Held Mine, have received widespread critical acclaim. Her books have been translated into over 30 languages. Her novelHamnet, based on the life ofShakespeare's family, was published in 2020. The novel makes a link between the death of eleven-year-old Hamnet and the writing of the play Hamlet.[7]
She began writing her seventh novel,This Must Be the Place, in 2013, shortly after the birth of her third child. It was published in May 2016.[2] Hannah Beckermann, writing inThe Guardian, called it a "a tour de force... both technically dazzling and deeply moving... her best novel to date".[8]
Her 2017 memoir,I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death, deals with a series of near-death experiences that have occurred to her and her children. It is a memoir told non-chronologically, with each chapter headed by the name of the body part affected.[9]
From 2020 to 2022, O'Farrell published two pictures books for children,Where Snow Angels Go andThe Boy Who Lost His Spark, both illustrated by Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini.[10][11]
O'Farrell was the invited as castaway on theBBCRadio 4 programmeDesert Island Discs in March 2021.[12]
In 2022, she publishedThe Marriage Portrait, a novel based on the short life ofLucrezia de' Medici, who may or may not have been poisoned by her husband,Alfonso II, Duke of Ferrara. O'Farrell has said that she got the idea for the novel after seeing Lucrezia's portrait, attributed toAgnolo Bronzino, and from readingRobert Browning's poem, "My Last Duchess", in which Lucrezia makes a brief, silent and unnamed appearance. The novel was shortlisted for theWomen's Prize for Fiction.[13]
In 2023 O'Farrell won the author award atHarper's Bazaar's Women of the Year awards.[14]
In September 2025, O'Farrell announced her next book, titledLand, set in Ireland in the aftermath of thefamine.[15]
In April 2023, theRoyal Shakespeare Company's stage adaptation ofHamnet previewed at the newly opened Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon.[16] It transferred to the Garrick Theatre, London, in September 2023.[16]
In January 2024, it was reported thatChloé Zhao was planning to adaptHamnet for the screen alongside O'Farrell.Paul Mescal andJessie Buckley were reported as being chosen for the leading roles.[17]Focus Features will be a creative partner on the project. Emily Watson and Joe Alwyn also joined the cast in supporting roles. Directors Steven Spielberg and Sam Mendes joined on as producers for the film in August 2024, shortly after filming finished.[18]
Hamnet world premiered at the52nd Telluride Film Festival to rave reviews.[19][20] The film then went to theToronto International Film Festival, where it won the highly covetedPeople's Choice Award.[21] The film will have alimited theatrical release in theUnited States on November 27 before expanding nationwide December 12.[22] The film will be released in the UK January 9.
In May 2024,Audrey Diwan was attached to direct a film adaptation ofThe Marriage Portrait forElement Pictures and Wildside. No further details had been announced.[23]
O'Farrell married fellow writerWilliam Sutcliffe, whom she met while they were students at Cambridge; they didn't become a couple, however, until ten years or so after they graduated. As of 2017[update] they lived inEdinburgh, Scotland, with their three children.[24][25] She has said of Sutcliffe: "Will's always been my first reader, even before we were a couple, so he's a huge influence. He's brutal but you need that".[26]One of O'Farrell's children suffers with severe allergies, the challenges of which she writes about in her memoir.[27]
O'Farrell appeared inWaterstones25 Authors for the Future list in 2007.[28]
In July 2021 she was announced aFellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL).[29]
| Year | Title | Award/Honour | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | After You'd Gone | Betty Trask Award | Won | [30] |
| 2005 | The Distance Between Us | Somerset Maugham Award | Won | [31] |
| 2010 | The Hand That First Held Mine | Costa Book Award for Fiction | Won | [32][33] |
| 2013 | Instructions for a Heatwave | Costa Book Award for Fiction | Shortlisted | [34] |
| 2016 | This Must be the Place | Costa Book Award for Fiction | Shortlisted | [35] |
| 2018 | I Am, I Am, I Am | PEN/Ackerley Prize | Shortlisted | [36] |
| 2020 | Hamnet | National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction | Won | [37][38][39] |
| Women's Prize for Fiction | Won | [40][41] | ||
| 2021 | Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction | Longlisted | [42] | |
| Dalkey Literary Awards's Novel of the Year | Won | [43] | ||
| Walter Scott Prize | Shortlisted | [44] | ||
| 2023 | The Boy Who Lost His Spark | KPMG Children's Books Ireland Awards | Won | [45] |
Born in Coleraine, County Londonderry, in 1972, hers was a peripatetic childhood courtesy of her father's academic career...
