Maggie O'Farrell

'''Maggie O'Farrell''', RSL (born 27 May 1972), 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. Provided by Wikipedia