Maggie O'Farrell publishes new novel 'Land'
Sweeping work explores destruction and colonisation in post-famine Ireland
Many congratulations to our alumna Maggie O'Farrell on the publication of Land, a sweeping portrait of family life set in the decades after the Irish famine.
The novel, Maggie's tenth, tells the story of an Irish cartographer working for the British army in Ireland in the mid-19th Century, revising maps after the devastation caused by the Great Hunger.
The book was inspired by the multi-award-winning author's great-great-grandfather, whom she discovered made Ordnance Survey maps for the British from 1848. It addresses themes of colonisation and destruction, set against a backdrop of families left to die of starvation on estates owned by British aristocrats and landowners. The famine killed at least a million people and forced many more into exile.
Maggie studied English at Murray Edwards (then called New Hall) and continues to inspire our community with her bold and exquisite writing. Speaking to one of our students for an interview to be published later this year in our College magazine, Dolphin, Maggie reflected on the significance of her time as an undergraduate:
"It's funny you know, the three years of my undergraduate degree seemed enormous, like a lifetime. But looking back at it now it seems like just a hobby.
"I think all those friendships and all the teaching and tutorials and everything are so important, because there's never another time in your life when you are so incredibly porous for friendship and opportunity. You know, it's astonishing and you don't really realise how rare, how special that is."
Maggie has been garlanded with awards for her books, which include both fiction and memoir. Her 2020 novel Hamnet, exploring the family life of William Shakespeare and his wife Agnes Hathaway as they cope with the death of their 11-year-old son Hamnet, won the Women's Prize for Fiction among other awards and was adapted into a film, released in 2025. The film won three Oscars at the 2026 Academy Awards and was nominated for five more, including Best Adapted Screenplay, written by Maggie and director Chloé Zhao.