We are absolutely delighted to announce that Maggie O’Farrell will be coming to Birmingham for the release of her brand new novel ‘Land’.

Land:

Her tenth novel, Land, is her most ambitious so far; a multi-generational epic which opens on a windswept peninsula in the west of Ireland and follows its characters through loss, hope and reunion. Land was inspired by Maggie’s own family history and by the landscape of the Great Atlantic Way. A mapmaker, Tomás, and his son are working for the Ordnance Survey which is surveying the whole of Ireland. It’s 1865 and the country has been devastated by the Great Hunger.

Tomás intends his maps to bear witness to the catastrophe. They come across an ancient scrap of woodland which isn’t recorded on any existing maps. A strange encounter in this unsettling place leads them to embark on an extraordinary odyssey that will unearth histories old and new, changing not only their lives but those of everyone who comes after them. Land is a spellbinding novel of separation, longing, recovery and survival in the shadow of tragedy. It’s also a story about place, and how layers of history change landscapes and the people who live in them.

Maggie O’Farrell says: “This is a novel I’ve wanted to write for a long time, inspired by my great-great-grandfather who worked on the Ordnance Survey maps of Ireland shortly after the Great Hunger. Land is about a country that has suffered a cataclysm and about a man and his family trying to find their place in its aftermath. I wanted to explore how individual lives intertwine with history and myth and landscape and how the act of mapping can mean different things to different people. It’s also about recovery and loss, rebellion and colonisation, a particularly loyal dog, and a ghost who is determined to make its presence felt.”

Land’s publication will follow the release of a film adaptation of Hamnet, Maggie’s much loved and highly acclaimed novel, on 9 January in the UK and Ireland. Maggie co-wrote the screenplay with Academy-Award-winner Chloé Zhao (Nomadland). The film stars Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley and was directed by Chloé Zhao. Hamnet has already won the audience award at multiple film festivals including Telluride, Toronto and London.

Maggie O’Farrell is one of the most loved writers in the English language. Her debut, AFTER YOU’D GONE, marked the start of a career which has established Maggie as one of the great storytellers of our times.

From that point onwards, Maggie has enjoyed critical acclaim and received numerous literary awards. THE HAND THAT FIRST HELD MINE won the 2010 Costa Novel Award. HAMNET, which imagined the untold story of Shakespeare’s son, won the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction and was Waterstones’ Book of the Year, and was also a no. 1 bestseller.  Her most recent novel, THE MARRIAGE PORTRAIT, was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize.

Maggie has recently co-written, with Chloé Zhao, the screenplay for HAMNET. The forthcoming film will star Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley and will be directed by academy-award-winner Chloé Zhao (Nomadland). Hamnet has previously been adapted for the stage by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Maggie is also the author of three books for children, WHERE SNOW ANGELS GO, THE BOY WHO LOST HIS SPARK and WHEN THE STUTTER CAME TO STAY.

She was born in Coleraine in Northern Ireland and grew up in Wales and Scotland. Currently, she lives in Edinburgh.

Tinder Press and Headline have published all of Maggie’s novels which have sold over four million copies in the UK and Ireland and have been translated into 43 languages around the
world. Maggie’s memoir, I Am, I Am, I Am – which described the seventeen near-death experiences which have punctuated her life – was an immediate number one Sunday Times bestseller in 2018. Maggie has enjoyed critical acclaim and recognition. Hamnet won the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction and was Waterstones’ Book of the Year. Her previous novel, The Marriage Portrait, was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize. The Hand that First Held Mine won the 2010 Costa Novel Award. Land will publish in hardback, e-book and audio on 2 June 2026 in the UK, Ireland and Australia.

Note, if you buy ticket and book, you will be able to pick up your copy from us at The Heath Bookshop on the publication date, which is the 2nd of June 2026!

The book  includes a stamped author signature copy of Land – exclusive to the Land tour.