In conversation with MAGGIE O'FARRELL

The internationally acclaimed author talks to Zoe West

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Famed for her richly textured prose and insight into the human heart, Maggie O’Farrell is a compelling voice in contemporary fiction. She gained global recognition with Hamnet, a haunting Shakespearean reimagining that won the Women’s Prize for Fiction and earned an Oscar nomination for its adapted screenplay. Her 10th novel, Land, set in 1865 on a windswept Irish peninsula, follows a father, Tomás, and his son, Liam, through a landscape scarred by the Great Hunger – an exploration of memory, survival and the enduring spirit of the land.

All families have their stories, and one of ours was that an ancestor worked on early Irish maps. It was my great-great-grandfather, who Tomás is based on. Researching him was difficult – Irish labourers couldn’t sign their work, so his name appears only briefly. I found books, notebooks and field notes I think are his. Then, unexpectedly, I realised much of his signed work from Scotland was just a mile from my home. Spending years searching in Ireland, only to find it so close, was extraordinary. Piecing these facts together – and adding fiction – I created a story around them. In the end, it turns out, the myth was true.