Author
Emma Donoghue
Birth Date
October 24, 1969
(56 Years)
Associated Country
Canada
Emma Donoghue is an Irish-Canadian novelist, playwright, and screenwriter known for her historical fiction, literary novels, and works exploring gender, identity, and family relationships. Born in Dublin, Ireland, she studied English and French literature at University of Cambridge before moving to Canada, where she established her literary career. Her work is characterized by meticulous historical research, strong character development, and an interest in overlooked stories from the past.
Donoghue has written across a wide range of genres, including contemporary fiction, historical fiction, drama, short stories, and nonfiction. Her novels often explore themes of resilience, belonging, love, and survival, while bringing historical events and marginalized voices to life. She is particularly noted for her ability to blend emotional intimacy with broader social and historical contexts.
In addition to her success as a novelist, Donoghue has worked extensively as a playwright and screenwriter, adapting some of her own work for film and stage. Her writing has earned international acclaim, numerous literary awards, and a wide readership, establishing her as one of the most respected contemporary authors working in both historical and literary fiction.
Donoghue has written across a wide range of genres, including contemporary fiction, historical fiction, drama, short stories, and nonfiction. Her novels often explore themes of resilience, belonging, love, and survival, while bringing historical events and marginalized voices to life. She is particularly noted for her ability to blend emotional intimacy with broader social and historical contexts.
In addition to her success as a novelist, Donoghue has worked extensively as a playwright and screenwriter, adapting some of her own work for film and stage. Her writing has earned international acclaim, numerous literary awards, and a wide readership, establishing her as one of the most respected contemporary authors working in both historical and literary fiction.
Books
Fourteen Days 2024
Set in a Lower East Side tenement in the early days of the COVID-19 lockdowns, Fourteen Days is an irresistibly propulsive collaborative novel from the Authors Guild, with an unusual twist: each...
In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new Flu are...
Akin 2019
Noah Selvaggio is a retired chemistry professor and widower living on the Upper West Side, but born in the South of France. He is days away from his first visit back to Nice since he was a child,...
The Wonder 2016
Tourists flock to the cabin of eleven-year-old Anna O'Donnell, who believes herself to be living off manna from heaven, and a journalist is sent to cover the sensation. Lib Wright, a veteran of...
Frog Music 2014
Summer of 1876: San Francisco is in the fierce grip of a record-breaking heat wave and a smallpox epidemic. Through the window of a railroad saloon, a young woman named Jenny Bonnet is shot dead.
The...
Hood 2011
Penelope O’Grady and Cara Wall are risking disaster when, like teenagers in any intolerant time and place—here, a Dublin convent school in the late 1970s—they fall in love. Yet Cara, the free spirit,...
Room 2010
Held captive for years in a small shed, a woman and her precocious young son finally gain their freedom, and the boy experiences the outside world for the first time.
To five-year-old-Jack, Room is...
The Sealed Letter 2009
Miss Emily "Fido" Faithfull is a "woman of business" and a spinster pioneer in the British women’s movement, independent of mind but naively trusting of heart. Distracted from her cause by the sudden...
Slammerkin 2002
Born to rough cloth in Hogarth's London, but longing for silk, Mary Saunders's eye for a shiny red ribbon leads her to prostitution at a young age. A dangerous misstep sends her fleeing to Monmouth,...