Maggie O'Farrell: Giving New Life to Shakespeare’s Son (2020 Event)

‘Hamnet and Hamlet are in fact the same name, entirely
interchangeable in Stratford in the late sixteenth century.’ This
epigraph to Maggie O’Farrell’s new novel, Hamnet, dispels any
doubt that Shakespeare’s son and his most celebrated character
are meaningfully linked.


In a short but scorchingly emotional book, O’Farrell brings us
into the 16th century world of Shakespeare’s family living in
Stratford. It is the time of the bubonic plague and with one of
the family members falling into a fever, the novel charts the
emotional journey of Shakespeare’s wife Agnes as trauma
approaches.


Surely Maggie O’Farrell’s most accomplished novel to date, Hamnet
centres around the emotional life of a deeply intuitive woman,
charting the terrain of her grief at the loss of a child. Join
the Edinburgh-based writer as she discusses her latest critically
acclaimed novel with Scottish author and journalist
Stuart Kelly in this event recorded live at the
2020 Book Festival.