Maggie O’Farrell, writer: Identity is complicated
5/28/202623 min
“I was born in Coleraine, then I moved to Wales and then I moved to Ireland. It's very complicated and I feel there's a strange sense if you grow up somewhere different from where you were born. That's just true of everyone. If your accent doesn't match your name - as in my case - I think you walk alongside all your life a kind of ghost-self in that there's always a sense of ‘who would I have been if we'd stayed?’”
Katie Razzall speaks to acclaimed writer Maggie O’Farrell. The 54-year-old has been a published author for more than 25 years, with her books translated into more than 40 languages.
O’Farrell shot to wider international fame following the award-winning screen adaptation of her 2020 novel Hamnet, a story about the son of the English playwright William Shakespeare.
She’s now publishing Land, her sweeping new tale centred around an Irish map-maker working for the British army at the time of the Great Famine in Ireland in the mid-19th century. Between 1845 and 1852, at least one million people died due to starvation and disease, with a further two million people fleeing Ireland to escape the famine.
The book is about colonisation and devastation, set against a backdrop of families left to die of starvation on estates owned by British aristocrats and landowners. Drawing on her own family history during that period, it’s O’Farrell’s most political work yet - and as she explains, its themes still resonate with the world today. The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC, including episodes with Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao, author Sir Salman Rushdie, and comedian Eric Idle. You can listen on the BBC World Service on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 0800 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out three times a week on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts.
Presenter: Katie Razzall Producers: Ben Cooper and Roxanne Panthaki Editors: Farhana Haider and Justine Lang
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(Image: Maggie O’Farrell. Credit: Getty)
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Katie Razzall· Host0:30
[upbeat music] Hello, I'm Katie Razzall, the BBC's culture and media editor, and this is The Interview from the BBC World Service. The best conversations coming out of the BBC. People shaping our world from all over the world.
Speaker 10:48
If you're not a little bit afraid, then you're not paying attention.
Katie Razzall· Host0:54
We have never seen a people so united. Do not make that boat crossing. Do not make that journey.
Speaker 11:00
Being born in America, feeling American, but having people treat me like I'm not. We're more popular than populism.
Katie Razzall· Host1:06
For this interview, I met the acclaimed Northern Ireland-born writer Maggie O'Farrell at her home in Scotland's capital, Edinburgh. The fifty-four-year-old has been a published author for more than twenty-five years, with her books translated into more than forty-four languages. O'Farrell shot to wider international fame following her award-winning screen adaptation