An Evening with Maggie O’Farrell

25 years since the publication of her debut novel, celebrate the author’s quarter-century of writing with a conversation about her life and career.

Maggie O’Farrell is one of the most loved writers in the English language. Her debut, After You’d Gone, marked the start of a career which has established her as one of the great storytellers of our times.

Her nine novels have explored disparate themes – from incarceration, madness and treachery to love, bereavement and loss – but they all share her masterful craft and inimitable prose, drawing readers deep into fictional worlds few can forget.

Her memoir, I Am, I Am, I Am, detailing 17 near-death experiences which have punctuated her life, reached the top of the Sunday Times bestseller list in 2017.

She has enjoyed critical acclaim and received numerous literary awards: The Hand that First Held Mine won the 2010 Costa Novel Award; Hamnet, which imagined the untold story of Shakespeare’s son, won the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction and was Waterstones’ Book of the Year; and her most recent novel, The Marriage Portrait, was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize.

She has recently co-written, with Chloé Zhao, the screenplay for Hamnet. The forthcoming film will star Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley and will be directed by academy-award-winner Chloé Zhao (Nomadland). Hamnet has previously been adapted for the stage by the Royal Shakespeare Company.