You walk alongside a ghost self all your life
In a quiet Edinburgh garden studio, novelist Maggie O'Farrell has turned a family discovery — a great-great-grandfather who mapped Ireland for the British during the Great Famine — into her most politically charged work yet. Her new novel Land arrives in June 2026, tracing the devastation of a catastrophe that killed over a million people through the intimate lens of a single plot of land and the man compelled to redraw a country hollowed out by colonial indifference. It is a book about erasure and memory, written by a woman who has always understood what it means to carry a ghost self alongside the one the world sees.
- A million dead, whole villages erased, and food exported to Britain while Irish families starved — O'Farrell's Land refuses to let one of history's most devastating colonial crimes settle quietly into the past.
- The discovery that her own great-great-grandfather mapped Ireland for the British army in 1848 transformed the novel from historical fiction into something urgent and personal, a reckoning with complicity and survival.
- Charles Trevelyon, the civil servant who called the Irish 'idle and indolent' and was knighted for his famine relief work, becomes a focal point of O'Farrell's moral fury — she wants his knighthood rescinded.
- Fresh from a Bafta and Golden Globe for Hamnet, O'Farrell remains deliberately unenchanted by Hollywood glamour, storing her awards in the basement while her children announce mock winners to each other.
- With Land already optioned for film and O'Farrell planning to write the screenplay herself, the story of Ireland's famine is moving toward a new and wider audience — one she is not yet ready to release from her hands.
Maggie O'Farrell opens the door of her Edinburgh home in a jumper that reads LOVE, a cat at her heels, and offers tea without ceremony. She is not someone visibly altered by the recent whirlwind — the Bafta, the Golden Globe for Hamnet — though the awards themselves sit wrapped in boxes in her basement. She chose her own clothes for every ceremony, wore a red quill headpiece to the Baftas and a Victorian mourning necklace to the Oscars, a deliberate gesture toward historical weight. Her children have since commandeered the trophies for mock award shows downstairs.
She is here to talk about Land, her new novel arriving June 2026, and it is her most political work. The book centers on an Irish mapmaker working for the British army during the Great Famine — a role inspired by O'Farrell's discovery that her own great-great-grandfather made Ordnance Survey maps for the British beginning in 1848. The famine killed at least a million people and forced countless others into exile. Whole villages vanished. Estates were redrawn. She wanted to tell Ireland's entire story through a single plot of land.
At the heart of the novel's moral fury is Charles Trevelyon, the civil servant who administered famine relief while describing the Irish in a letter as 'idle, indolent, ungrateful, unself-reliant' — and who received a knighthood for that same relief work a year later. O'Farrell is unambiguous: 'I would quite like the British Government to rescind it. I don't think he should have it.'
Born in Northern Ireland and raised across Britain, O'Farrell knows displacement intimately. She describes moving in the 1970s when being Irish in Britain was genuinely difficult — teachers asked if her father was in the IRA; a London colleague implied the same years later. She called them out. 'Everybody was slightly offended by my fury,' she recalls. The conversation moves naturally to contemporary racism, which she finds 'really frightening' — not only for specific communities but for anyone who can be made into an other.
She leads the way down her garden — 'my commute to work' — past a treehouse and a tortoise run, to a glass studio full of daylight and vintage fountain pens. Despite ten novels, eight million books sold, and translation into forty-four languages, she still has weeks where she sits with her head in her hands convinced she needs a different job. Land has already been optioned by the producer behind Hamnet, and O'Farrell plans to write the screenplay. 'I just find it hard to let it go because it's so personal.' A new novel has tentatively begun, but she won't discuss it — superstition about unfinished things.
Maggie O'Farrell answers the door of her Edinburgh home in a black and red jumper that reads LOVE, one of her three cats trailing behind her. She offers tea without ceremony. This is not someone intoxicated by the recent whirlwind—the red carpet events, the Bafta, the Golden Globe for adapting her novel Hamnet into film. She chose her own clothes for the awards, rejecting a stylist as "such a weird idea." At the Baftas, she wore a red quill headpiece. For the Oscars, a black veil and Victorian jet mourning necklace, a deliberate choice tied not just to saying goodbye to her creation but to the historical weight of her subject: Shakespeare's son Hamnet, who died young and was real. The awards themselves now sit wrapped in boxes in her basement. "Until I get used to the idea," she says.
She's here to talk about Land, her new novel arriving June 2, 2026—a sweeping story centered on an Irish mapmaker working for the British army in the mid-nineteenth century. The book emerged from a discovery about her own family: her great-great-grandfather made Ordnance Survey maps for the British beginning in 1848, toward the end of the Great Famine. That catastrophe killed at least a million people and forced countless others into exile. The mapmaker's work involved revising the second version of Ireland's map, necessary because, as O'Farrell puts it, "this huge cataclysm had swept through the country." Whole villages were wiped out. Estates were redrawn. Families were evicted. She wanted to tell the entire story of Ireland through the lens of a single plot of land.
The novel is her most political work. It grapples with colonization and devastation—families left to starve on estates owned by British aristocrats while other food crops were exported to Britain. The ballad "The Fields of Athenry" refers to this as "Trevelyon's corn," after Charles Trevelyon, the civil servant who administered famine relief. O'Farrell calls his approach "upsetting and horrifying." In a letter, Trevelyon described the famine as an act of God visited upon "an idle, indolent, ungrateful, unself-reliant people." A year after writing those words, he received a knighthood for his famine relief work. "I would quite like the British Government to rescind it," O'Farrell says. "I don't think he should have it."
She was born in Northern Ireland and moved to Britain as a child—Wales, then Scotland. Displacement, she reflects, means "you walk alongside, all your life, a kind of ghost self." The family relocated in the 1970s when tensions between Britain and Ireland ran high, when "it was not easy actually to be Irish in Britain at that time." Teachers asked her directly if her father was in the IRA. Years later, working at a London newspaper, a colleague took a message from her father and then told her it was funny because she always expected him to "give us a five-minute warning"—implying, O'Farrell understood, that her father was a terrorist. She called them out. "Everybody was slightly offended by my fury," she recalls.
We meet soon after attacks in Golders Green, and the conversation turns to contemporary racism. "I think the rise of racism is really, really concerning for everybody," she says, "not just Jews, not just Muslims, everybody, and everyone who can be considered by some people to be 'an other.' It's really frightening." She believes all of us must work hard at teaching children "about not hating other people for being slightly different from yourself."
She leads me down her garden—"my commute to work," she calls it—past a treehouse and a run for her rescue tortoise, to a glass-framed studio where daylight and peacefulness reign. Cats follow. Sometimes the tortoise joins her. She's fetishistic about stationery, showing off a collection of vintage fountain pens. Despite ten novels, a Women's Prize for Fiction, and the recent Hollywood accolades, she still loses confidence entirely. There are weeks when she sits with her head in her hands thinking she needs to retrain, that this is a disaster, that she needs a different job. Yet she's sold more than eight million books worldwide and is translated into forty-four languages.
Land has already been optioned by the same producer behind Hamnet. O'Farrell confirms she plans to write the screenplay. "I think I want to. I just find it hard to let it go because it's so personal." At the Academy Awards in March, waiting to take her seat, she heard a voice behind her. "I thought to myself, 'That's so weird, that guy sounds exactly like George Clooney.' And then I thought, 'That's because it is George Clooney.'" The Golden Globe, she notes, is particularly heavy. "Somebody handed it to me on stage and I really nearly dropped it on Steven Spielberg's foot. Can you imagine?" For now, her children play with the awards in the basement, announcing mock winners: "And the award for best sister goes to..." She's tentatively started another novel but won't discuss it—superstition about unfinished work. Spielberg might want protective footwear just in case.
Notable Quotes
I would quite like the British Government to rescind it. I don't think he should have it.— Maggie O'Farrell, on Charles Trevelyon's knighthood
I think the rise of racism is really, really concerning for everybody...everyone who can be considered by some people to be 'an other.' It's really frightening.— Maggie O'Farrell, on contemporary racism
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
You won a Bafta and a Golden Globe, and you've hidden them in your basement. Most people would have them on the mantelpiece.
I know it seems strange. But there's something about having them out that feels too flashy to me. I need time to adjust to the idea that this happened.
Your great-great-grandfather was mapping Ireland during the famine. Did you know that when you started writing, or did you discover it along the way?
I discovered it. That's what drew me to the story in the first place. He was doing revisions to maps in 1848, right when the catastrophe was unfolding. I couldn't get my head around what that must have felt like—living through it and then having to redraw the country.
Charles Trevelyon, the man who administered famine relief, called Irish people idle and indolent. Then he got a knighthood.
It's upsetting and horrifying. He wrote that in a letter, and a year later he was rewarded for his work. I genuinely think the British Government should rescind it. He shouldn't have it.
You were Irish in Britain in the 1970s. People asked if your father was in the IRA.
It was a different time. There was real hostility. Years later, a colleague at a newspaper implied my father was a terrorist bomber. When I called them out, everyone was offended by my anger, not by what they'd said. That's the thing about displacement—you carry it with you forever.
Do you think things have improved?
Relations have, yes. But I wonder if it's because people are less racist or because there are newer waves of immigrants absorbing that hostility instead. Either way, we all need to teach our children not to hate people for being different.