Sally Rooney is an Irish author and screenwriter. Her debut novel, Conversations with Friends, was published in 2017. It was followed by Normal People in 2018. Normal People was adapted into a 2020 TV series.
Education and personal life
Rooney was born in Castlebar, County Mayo, in 1991, and grew up there. Her father worked for Telecom Éireann, and her mother ran an arts centre. Rooney has an older brother and a younger sister. Rooney studied English at Trinity College Dublin, where she was elected a scholar in 2011. She started a master's degree in politics there, and completed a degree in American literature instead, and graduated from an MA in 2013. Rooney has described herself as a Marxist. A university debater, as a student at Trinity College Dublin, Rooney rose through the ranks of the European circuit to become the top debater at the European University Debating Championships in 2013, later writing of the experience. Before becoming a writer, she worked for a restaurant in an administrative role. She lives in Dublin.
Career
Rooney completed her first novel—which she has described as "absolute trash"—at the age of 15.
''Conversations with Friends''
She began writing "constantly" in late 2014. She completed her debut novel, Conversations with Friends, while still studying for her master's degree in American literature. She wrote 100,000 words of the book in three months. In 2015, her essay "Even if You Beat Me", about her time as the “top competitive debater on the continent of Europe", was seen by an agent, Tracy Bohan, of the Wylie Agency, and Bohan contacted Rooney. Rooney gave Bohan a manuscript, and Bohan circulated it to publishers, receiving seven bids.
"She had seen my story and wondered whether I had anything else she could read"..."But I didn’t send her anything for ages"..."I don’t know why. I didn’t want her to see this shoddy draft."
Rooney signed with Tracy Bohan of the Wylie Agency, and Conversations with Friends was subject to a seven-party auction for its publishing rights,which were eventually sold in 12 countries. The novel was published in June 2017 by Faber and Faber. It was nominated for the 2018 Swansea University International Dylan Thomas Prize, and the 2018 Folio Prize, and won the 2017 Sunday Times/Peters Fraser & Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award.
Sally Rooney was announced as editor of the Irish literary magazineThe Stinging Fly in November 2017. She was a contributing writer to the magazine. Rooney oversaw the magazine's two issues in 2018, before handing the editorship over to Danny Denton. She remains a contributing editor to the magazine. In 2018, Rooney was announced as taking part in the Cúirt International Festival of Literature.
''Normal People'' novel
Rooney's second novel, Normal People, was published in September 2018, also by Faber & Faber. The novel grew out of Rooney's exploration into the history between the two main characters of her short story "At the Clinic." In July 2018, Normal People was longlisted for that year's Man Booker Prize. On 27 November 2018, the work won "Irish Novel of the Year" at the Irish Book Awards and was named Waterstones' Book of the Year for 2018. In January 2019, it won the Costa Novel Award for the Novel category. It was longlisted for the 2019 Dylan Thomas Prize and the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction.
On 23 April 2019, the New York Public Library's Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers announced its 2019 class of fellows, which included Rooney. The press release stated "she will be writing a new novel under the working title Beautiful World, Where Are You, examining aesthetics and political crisis."
In February 2020, it was announced that the novel Conversations with Friends would be made into a 12-episode Hulu/BBC Three miniseries. It was also announced that the creative team behind Normal People, director Lenny Abrahamson and co-writer Alice Birch would be returning.
