Born in 1972, Maggie O’Farrell is a celebrated Irish novelist and memoirist. She has gained widespread recognition for her deeply emotional and insightful works that explore human relationships, vulnerability, and the complexities of life. O’Farrell’s first novel, After You’d Gone, won the prestigious Betty Trask Award, and she continued to gain accolades, including the Somerset Maugham Award and the Costa Book Award for The Hand That First Held Mine.

Her memoir I Am, I Am, I Am (known as Exist, Exist, Exist in Romanian translation) captures her close encounters with death in seventeen distinct stories. Known for her evocative, lyrical writing style, O’Farrell masterfully blends elements of fiction and non-fiction, using her own life experiences to touch upon universal themes of love, loss, and survival. She lives in Edinburgh with her husband, writer William Sutcliffe, and their children.