Author | Maggie O'Farrell |
---|---|
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Genre | Historical fiction |
Published | 31 March 2020 |
Publisher | Tinder Press |
Pages | 384 |
Awards | Women's Prize (2020), National Book Critics (2020) |
ISBN | 978-1472223791 (1st ed. UK Hardcover) |
OCLC | 1104658967 |
823/.914 | |
LC Class | PR6065.F36 H35 2020 |
Hamnet is a 2020 novel by Maggie O'Farrell. It is a fictional account of William Shakespeare's son, Hamnet, who died at age eleven in 1596, focusing on his parents' grief. In Canada, the novel was published under the title Hamnet & Judith. [1]
In 2020, the book won the Women's Prize for Fiction [2] and National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction; that December, it was also chosen as Waterstones' Book Of The Year. [3] The following year, it was named "Novel of the Year" at the Dalkey Literary Awards, [4] was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize, [5] and longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. [6] It was described in Literary Review as "a rich story by any stretch of the imagination, and O'Farrell's stretches much, much further than most of ours." [7]
In 2023, a stage adaptation of the novel by Lolita Chakrabarti premiered at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, re-opening the Swan Theatre after the COVID-19 pandemic and refurbishment. [8] [9] In September, the piece transferred to the Garrick Theatre in London, directed by Erica Whyman and starring Madeleine Mantock as Agnes Hathaway, Tom Varey as William Shakespeare and Ajani Cabey as Hamnet. It is scheduled to play until at least February 2024. [10]
A film adaptation produced in part by Amblin Partners and directed by Chloé Zhao was announced in April 2023, with Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal in talks to star in the film. [11]
Year- | Award/Honour | Category | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
2020 | National Book Critics Circle Award | Fiction | Won | [2] |
Women's Prize for Fiction | — | Won | [3] | |
2021 | Andrew Carnegie Medal | Fiction | Longlist | [6] |
Dalkey Literary Awards | Novel of the Year | Won | [4] | |
Walter Scott Prize | — | Shortlist | [5] |
John O'Farrell is a British author, comedy scriptwriter, and political campaigner. Previously a lead writer for such shows as Spitting Image and Have I Got News for You, he is now best known as a comic author for such books such as The Man Who Forgot His Wife and An Utterly Impartial History of Britain. He is one of a small number of British writers to have achieved best-seller status with both fiction and nonfiction. He has also published three collections of his weekly column for The Guardian and set up Britain's first daily satirical news website NewsBiscuit. With comedian Angela Barnes, he co-hosts the light-hearted historical podcast We Are History.
Arch Colson Chipp Whitehead is an American novelist. He is the author of nine novels, including his 1999 debut The Intuitionist; The Underground Railroad (2016), for which he won the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; and The Nickel Boys, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction again in 2020, making him one of only four writers ever to win the prize twice. He has also published two books of nonfiction. In 2002, he received a MacArthur Fellowship.
Anne Hathaway was the wife of William Shakespeare, an English poet, playwright and actor. They were married in 1582, when Hathaway was 26 years old and Shakespeare was 18. She outlived her husband by seven years. Very little is known about her life beyond a few references in legal documents. Her personality and relationship to Shakespeare have been the subject of much speculation by many historians and writers.
All Is True is a 2018 British fictional historical film directed by Kenneth Branagh and written by Ben Elton. It stars Branagh as playwright William Shakespeare. The film takes its title from an alternative name for Shakespeare's play Henry VIII.
Timothy John Winton is an Australian writer. He has written novels, children's books, non-fiction books, and short stories. In 1997, he was named a Living Treasure by the National Trust of Australia, and has won the Miles Franklin Award four times.
Hamnet Shakespeare was the only son of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, and the fraternal twin of Judith Shakespeare. He died at the age of 11. Some Shakespearean scholars speculate on the relationship between Hamnet and his father's later play Hamlet, as well as on possible connections between Hamnet's death and the writing of King John, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, and Twelfth Night.
Lolita Chakrabarti is a British actress and writer.
Maggie O'Farrell, RSL, is a novelist from Northern Ireland. Her acclaimed first novel, After You'd Gone, won the Betty Trask Award, and a later one, The Hand That First Held Mine, the 2010 Costa Novel Award. She has twice been shortlisted since for the Costa Novel Award for Instructions for a Heatwave in 2014 and This Must Be The Place in 2017. She appeared in the Waterstones 25 Authors for the Future. Her memoir I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death reached the top of the Sunday Times bestseller list. Her novel Hamnet won the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2020, and the fiction prize at the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Awards. The Marriage Portrait was shortlisted for the 2023 Women's Prize for Fiction.
Judith Quiney, née Shakespeare, was the younger daughter of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway and the fraternal twin of their only son Hamnet Shakespeare. She married Thomas Quiney, a vintner of Stratford-upon-Avon. The circumstances of the marriage, including Quiney's misconduct, may have prompted the rewriting of Shakespeare's will. Thomas was struck out, while Judith's inheritance was attached with provisions to safeguard it from her husband. The bulk of Shakespeare's estate was left, in an elaborate fee tail, to his elder daughter Susanna and her male heirs.
Jessie Buckley is an Irish actress and singer. She is the recipient of a Laurence Olivier Award, in addition to nominations for an Academy Award and three BAFTA Awards.
A Waste of Shame is a 90-minute television drama on the circumstances surrounding William Shakespeare's composition of his sonnets. It takes its title from the first line of Sonnet 129. It was first broadcast on BBC Four on 22 November 2005 as part of the supporting programming for the BBC's ShakespeaRe-Told season, but was only loosely connected to the rest of the series.
All My Puny Sorrows is the sixth novel by Canadian writer Miriam Toews. The novel won the 2014 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2014 Scotiabank Giller Prize, the 2015 Folio Prize for Literature, and the 2015 Wellcome Book Prize. Toews has said that the novel draws heavily on the events leading up to the 2010 suicide of her sister, Marjorie.
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Chloé Zhao is a Chinese-born filmmaker. She is known primarily for her work on independent films.
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Madeleine Mantock is a British actress. She is known for her main role television work on the series Into the Badlands and a remake of the series The Tomorrow People. She played one of the main roles as Macy Vaughn in the reboot of Charmed from 2018 to 2021 on The CW. She appeared in The Long Song as Miss Clara in a supporting role.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 2020.
Hamnet Shakespeare (1585–1596) was the only son of English playwright William Shakespeare.
Luster is a 2020 debut novel by Raven Leilani. It follows a young Black woman who gets involved with a middle-aged white man in an open marriage. Luster was released on August 4, 2020 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. It received mainly positive critical reception and won the 2020 Kirkus Prize for fiction. In December 2020, the novel was found in Literary Hub to have made 16 lists of the year's best books.
Dominicana is a 2019 novel by Angie Cruz. It is Cruz's third novel, and was shortlisted for the 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction.