Emma Donoghue: ‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull blew my tiny mind’
The Room author on adoring Alan Garner, inspirational Sylvia Plath and the wisdom of Terry Pratchett
April 2024
The Pull of the Stars review – Emma Donoghue adapts her Spanish flu novel for an all-female cast
Set in a 1918 maternity ward, the play offers moments of tenderness amid its commentary on political and social upheaval
February 2024
Book of the day
Fourteen Days co-edited by Margaret Atwood review – a pandemic tale
Dave Eggers, Celeste Ng, Atwood and others come together for a collaborative novel set during the New York lockdown that explores our need for connection
August 2023
Book of the day
Learned by Heart by Emma Donoghue review – exquisite imagining of Anne Lister’s first love
The Room author evokes a touching relationship between the lesbian diarist Anne Lister and her boarding school lover Eliza Raine
December 2022
Best films 2022
Best movies of 2022 in the US: No 7 – The Wonder
Best films 2022
Best films of 2022 in the UK: No 8 – The Wonder
November 2022
The Wonder review – Florence Pugh’s passionate reckoning with a horrific miracle
Pugh drives forward Sebastián Lelio’s haunting adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s story of divine possession
October 2022
Mark Kermode's film of the week
The Wonder review – a haunting period drama of faith and reason
Florence Pugh stars as a nurse called in to verify a miracle in Sebastián Lelio’s powerful story set in 19th-century Ireland
September 2022
First look review
The Wonder review – Florence Pugh is miraculously good in eerie drama
Toronto film festival: The star plays a nurse investigating an alleged miracle in a captivating period thriller about the dangers of religious fervor
August 2022
Book of the day
Haven by Emma Donoghue review – a seventh-century Room
Haven by Emma Donoghue review – religious zeal meets ecological warning in AD600 Ireland
February 2022
‘A certain pleasant darkness’: what makes a good fictional sex scene?
The novelist Niamh Campbell on why describing intimacy is so difficult and how creative writing about sexuality is changing. Plus, she picks 10 of her favourite examples
March 2021
Lockdown culture
Margaret Atwood to edit collaborative modern Decameron for the Covid era
Fourteen Days: An Unauthorised Gathering imagines New York neighbours sharing stories amid the pandemic, with contributors from Dave Eggers to Celeste Ng
September 2020
Not the Booker prize
Not the Booker: Akin by Emma Donoghue - daft premise, good writing
The story of an elderly man who takes on the care of his young great-nephew has some lovely moments but strains the reader’s credulity Not the Booker 2020 shortlist: read along with us!
August 2020
The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue review – beauty amid horror
The Room author’s tender and evocative novel suffers from a surfeit of misery
July 2020
Book of the day
The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue review – fighting the 1918 flu pandemic
Fear and female camaraderie combine in this tale of three Dublin medics’ experiences from the author of Room
May 2020
Emma Donoghue: the lockdown lessons she learned from writing Room
The author’s bestselling novel of confinement has gained new resonance during coronavirus
October 2019
Akin by Emma Donoghue review – Room author loses her spark
The bestselling author falls flat with this second world war mystery set in the south of France
Book of the day
Akin by Emma Donoghue review – the ties that bind
A boy is thrown together with his great-uncle in this examination of freedom and family by the author of Room
On my radar
On my radar: Emma Donoghue’s cultural highlights
The author on Philip Pullman, heart-shaped pizzas in Nice, and going mob-handed to Shakespeare
