In a recent interview, O’Farrell stated that the majority of existing material disparages Anne Hathaway as “a cradle-snatching strumpet peasant” who “tricked Shakespeare into marrying her by getting pregnant,” despite the lack of proof to support such a theory. La escritora Maggie O’Farrell es una de las voces más sobresalientes y reconocidas de la narrativa escocesa en la actualidad. But it is - it's one of those things - you know, it's not a huge leap of the imagination. To order a copy for £16 go to guardianbookshop.com or call 020-3176 3837, Alas, poor Hamnet: spotlight falls on Shakespeare’s tragic only son, Maggie O’Farrell at home in Edinburgh. I mean, I - but it's funny. And of course, I slightly forgot. KELLY: Because she can't get her head around it, because how could any mother get their head around that you're preparing your son's body for burial? “People think of Agnes as a cradle-snatching yokel who married a younger man but her family was wealthy, they had a successful sheep farm. It is also the story of a kestrel and its mistress; a flea that boards a ship in Alexandria; and a glovemaker's son who flouts convention in pursuit of the woman he loves. She won the Costa novel award, in 2010, for The Hand That First Held Mine, and shortlisted for both Instructions for a Heatwave (2013) and This Must Be the Place (2016). It reads like a fairytale rooted in heartbreaking reality – there is no magic with which to save a child. But the next day, I thought: dammit, he’s right!”. And I did it in about 15-minute bursts. When the novelist Maggie O’Farrell was 16, she was invited to a fancy-dress party and knew at once who to be. We’ve messed everything up. And what distinguishes it from O’Farrell’s earlier work is that while it shares the page-turning verve of its predecessors, it pulls off what younger writers (she is now 47) seldom achieve: the power of letting a story appear to tell itself. When William Shakespeare sat down to write "Hamlet," his son - his only son, Hamnet - was some 4 years dead. There was, she was sure, a novel in it. Are you sure?’ And I said: ‘Yes, I’m absolutely positive.’ And I thought: if they don’t know, then maybe quite a lot of people don’t know.”. As brave? And I don't know. This is a novel that, above all, like her memoir, addresses mortality. This is the mother, Agnes, who is preparing Hamnet, her son's body, for burial. And Hamnet? We met in the first year of university but weren’t together for another 10 years. I wanted them to think about him as a human being... O'FARRELL: ...Rather than the behemoth that we, you know, know him as. O'FARRELL: Yeah. What is immediately likable is that she seems unaware of making a dramatic entrance and of her striking appearance. Ron Charles. How did - I mean, how did you do that? It is a condition from which she might have died. One day, while she was writing Hamnet, her daughter looked over her shoulder and started to read. A fictionalised account of the short life of Shakepeare’s son, Hamnet, is a work of profound understanding. It’s not nothing to call a play and a tragic hero after your son – it speaks volumes. If you love someone as much as parents love their children, you just have to turn it inside out to understand what it might be to lose them. KELLY: That's Maggie O'Farrell. But writing has always been a reprieve. He doesn't have a name. She put on a black shirt, with a ruffled paper collar, an inky cloak made out of a skirt, her Doc Martens and cheeky shorts over black leggings. But Ireland never loosens its hold: “My passport is Irish and, since Brexit, I’m clinging proudly to it. “There is no evidence he hated his wife or his domestic life. It covered the time in which I was writing the novel. Almost nothing is known about William Shakespeare's son, Hamnet, who died at age 11. I went round it several times and talked to several guides and asked millions of questions. Almost nothing is known about William Shakespeare's son, Hamnet, who died at age 11. O’Farrell is an interesting mixture – flighty and earthed. And it's funny that if you go back and read the play with the sort of wearing the spectacles of the idea that this child died four years before this play was written, it seems so obvious, in a sense, that this is a play about fathers and sons and absence and loss and grief and the inability to deal with grief. KELLY: I mean, what else do we actually know about the link between Hamnet the boy and "Hamlet" the play? ISBN-13: 9780525657606 Summary England, 1580: The Black Death creeps across the land, an ever-present threat, infecting the healthy, the sick, the old and the young, alike. Which is ironic since it’s about Shakespeare’s only son, who, we are all well aware, died. I am waiting as she pushes open the cafe door in a fast-forward flurry. Author Maggie O’Farrell will join us to talk about her Women’s Prize-winning novel, Hamnet, for our next Guardian Live Book Club. I did find this - you know, funny - I was looking back in a diary I wrote a couple of years ago. And although she is not superstitious, a further stumbling block to finishing Hamnet was the fear that it was playing with fire to imagine the death of an 11-year-old boy when she had a son who, at the time, was under 11 himself. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. You can make of them whatever you want. O'FARRELL: I had this absolutely brilliant English teacher called Mr. Henderson (ph), and he just mentioned in passing when we were studying the play that Shakespeare had had a son. O’Farrell went to Stratford-upon-Avon to research the book: “What’s astonishing at Shakespeare’s birthplace in Henley Street is that, for all his incredible output, he has left a very scant paper trail, so to be able to walk into that house is astonishing. and ask instead: why did she marry him? “I found this an extraordinary assumption,” she says. In this case, it's Hamnet, the real-life son of William Shakespeare, whose death may have inspired Hamlet. When she told them about Hamnet, they thought she was making him up. Thanks for having me. I felt he was part of my DNA.” And while there is no mystery about. Where is he? How much do we really know about the inspiration for one of the most famous plays ever performed? O’Farrell’s “ exceptional ” award-winning novel captures a Jacobean England haunted by a plague that tragically kills Hamnet, the only son of William Shakespeare. 2. Maggie O'Farrell, thank you. “Whenever they talked about his death, it would be followed by several paragraphs about infant mortality in the late 16th century.” The authors would explain that infant mortality was commonplace and imply that parents barely reacted when their children died. Maggie O’Farrell with her cats Malachy, right, and Moses, in 2007. He is gone. I mean, in writing this novel, Hamnet - I don't think I'm giving too much of a spoiler away - he dies. You know, I think we all have to be wary about that. William Shakespeare's name is never used in Hamnet — a conspicuous absence around which Maggie O'Farrell forms her richly imaginative narrative. And that required you to imagine what it would be like to lose a child and the guilt and the fury and the grief that would follow. O'FARRELL: I can remember exactly when it was. Claire Tomalin, Dominic Dromgoole and Kamila Shamsie are among those competing for superlatives to hail the novel, and everyone I know who has managed to get hold of an advance copy is in love with it. Marie-José Klaver. Even calling him William seems colossally presumptuous,” and she gives in to a gale of laughter. He's the husband, or he's the father or the playwright or the actor. And yet because so little is known about Shakespeare, O’Farrell had a free rein. She never swanks. I notice she never uses Shakespeare’s name in the book. And now, here it is: Hamnet – the novel of her career. And I couldn't write the book, I realize now, until my own son was very safely past the age of 11 - not that there was much risk of him contracting the Black Death, but I just couldn't do it. I felt he was part of my DNA.” And while there is no mystery about Hamlet’s glamorous turbulence appealing to an adolescent, O’Farrell’s feeling was to be rekindled, as an adult, by her discovery of the play’s connection with Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet. Surgeons are brave. O'FARRELL: Yeah. About Maggie O'Farrell. We’re drip-fed this image. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Of one thing I’m certain: anyone who reads it will find it impossible to see Hamlet again without thinking about the boy after whom the play was named. Her unconscious mind casts again and again, puzzled by the lack of bite by the answer she keeps giving it. And on it was written one line, and it said, I killed Hamnet today. When he read the first draft of The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox (2006) he said: ‘You need to rewrite half of it.’ And I did feel annoyed – we had a slightly frosty dinner. Maggie O’Farrell returns to the Salon for another world premiere with Hamnet, the novel she’s wanted to write for over thirty years. You write so beautifully about that in one passage that I wonder if I could get you to read for us. I’m wary of claiming Irish heritage but I often mistily think: I shall move back to Ireland.”, She once wrote: “In any fairytale, getting what you want comes at a cost.” What does she want herself? To me, it feels so obvious. You know, it goes against nature and the natural order of things. Talk about the way in which Maggie O'Farrell's novel speculates that 11-year-old Hamnet's death may have sparked the creation of one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies. It is 11 o’clock on a grey winter morning in Edinburgh and the plan is to meet O’Farrell in a local cafe and walk together to her house. 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