Maggie O'Farrell

Maggie O'Farrell was born in 1972 in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, and grew up in Wales and Scotland. She studied at Cambridge University and worked as a journalist and deputy literary editor at The Independent on Sunday before becoming a full-time novelist. She has published nine novels, gaining a reputation for psychologically astute narratives that blend historical and personal drama. Her breakthrough novel After You'd Gone (2000) established her talent for non-linear storytelling and emotional depth. I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death (2017) was a memoir exploring near-death experiences. Her novel Hamnet (2020), a reimagining of Shakespeare's family life focused on the death of his son, won the Waterstones Book of the Year 2020 and the Women's Prize for Fiction 2020. It became an international bestseller and is widely considered one of the finest historical novels of the decade. O'Farrell lives in Edinburgh with her husband, the novelist William Sutcliffe, and their three children. Her work has been translated into numerous languages and she has won or been shortlisted for numerous prizes.