Maggie O’Farrell: podcast appearances and interviews

Maggie O’Farrell is an Irish-British novelist born in 1972. Her debut novel, After You'd Gone, received the Betty Trask Award, establishing her presence in contemporary fiction. Her subsequent works have garnered critical acclaim, with The Hand That First Held Mine winning the 2010 Costa Novel Award. O'Farrell has been a finalist twice more for the same award, for Instructions for a Heatwave in 2014 and This Must Be The Place in 2017. Her memoir, I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death, achieved significant commercial success by reaching the top of the Sunday Times bestseller list. In 2020, her novel Hamnet was awarded the Women's Prize for Fiction as well as the fiction prize at the National Book Critics Circle Awards, marking a notable achievement in her literary career. O'Farrell co-adapted Hamnet for the screen with director Chloé Zhao in 2025 and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, highlighting her talents across multiple storytelling mediums.