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Emma Donoghue Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Emma Donoghue

Emma Donoghue

How to pronounce Emma Donoghue: don-a-hue

Emma Donoghue Biography

Born in Dublin in 1969, Emma Donoghue is an Irish emigrant twice over: she spent eight years in Cambridge doing a PhD in eighteenth-century literature before moving to London, Ontario, where she lives with her partner and their two children. She also migrates between genres, writing literary history, biography, stage and radio plays as well as fairy tales and short stories. She is best known for her novels, which range from the historical (The Wonder, Frog Music, Slammerkin, Life Mask, Landing, The Sealed Letter) to the contemporary (Stir-Fry, Hood, Landing). Her international bestseller Room was a New York Times Best Book of 2010 and was a finalist for the Man Booker, Commonwealth, and Orange Prizes.

Emma Donoghue's website

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Interview

An Interview with Emma Donoghue about her 2010 award-winner, Room.

Jack is such a unique narrator. At what point did you decide to tell the story from his perspective?

I never considered any other perspective: letting Jack tell this story was my idea in a nutshell. I hoped having a small child narrator would make such a horrifying premise original, involving, but also more bearable: his innocence would at least partly shield readers on their descent into the abyss. I also knew that Jack would have some interesting things to say about our world, as a newcomer to it; the book's satire of modern mores and media, and interrogations of the nature of reality, grew out of Jack's perspective rather than being part of my initial plan. I did have some technical worries about having such a young narrator: I knew the prospect of being stuck in a little kid's head might turn some readers off. But I never feared that Jack would be unable to tell the whole story.

How did you manage to get so thoroughly into the mind-set of a five-year-old boy?


It was a help that my own son was five, but it's not like Finn and Jack have much in common: Finn has been as shaped by sociability and freedom as Jack has by routine and one-to-one time with his mother. I tried to isolate ...

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Books by this Author

Books by Emma Donoghue at BookBrowse
Learned by Heart jacket The Pull of the Stars jacket Akin jacket The Wonder jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Emma Donoghue but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • David Almond

    David Almond

    David Almond, in his own words:

    I was born in Newcastle and I grew up in a big Catholic family in Felling-on-Tyne. I had four sisters and a brother and lots of relatives in the streets nearby. My dad had been in Burma ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Room

    Try:
    The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean
    by David Almond

  • Clare Beams

    Clare Beams

    Clare Beams is the author of the story collection We Show What We Have Learned, which won the Bard Prize and was a Kirkus Best Debut of 2016, as well as a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, the New York Public ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    The Wonder

    Try:
    The Illness Lesson
    by Clare Beams

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