Book Club Guide

Hamnet

by Maggie O'Farrell · 2020 · Literary Fiction

Key themes

Grief as a physical force that changes the shape of everything
The mother's body and its knowledge that the father's mind refuses
How art might be born from unbearable loss

About this book

In 1580s Stratford-upon-Avon, Agnes — wife of a young Latin tutor who will become William Shakespeare — struggles to save their son Hamnet from an illness moving through the household. O'Farrell's novel imagines the loss of a child that may have given rise to the greatest play ever written, exploring grief, love and the way a mother's devotion can outlast death. Winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction 2020.

Published in 2020, Hamnet won the Women's Prize for Fiction. O'Farrell spent years researching Tudor Stratford-upon-Avon while writing it. She has said she wanted to explore what Agnes — who has no voice in history — might have felt.

Discussion questions

O'Farrell never names the father — he is always 'the Latin tutor' or 'the husband.' What does this unnamed presence achieve — and what is she saying about whose story this is?
Agnes is the novel's true protagonist — a woman with an uncanny ability to sense illness and death. How does O'Farrell make her gifts feel real rather than merely symbolic?
The plague moves through the novel like a character — its journey from Asia through Europe to Stratford tracked in heartbreaking detail. How does this cosmic frame serve the intimate family story?
The novel ends with a vision of Hamlet being performed. What is O'Farrell doing with this connection — between a private grief and the public art that may have grown from it?
O'Farrell has spoken about losing a child. Does knowing this biographical context change how you read the novel — and should it?