Sally Rooney
Sally Rooney (born 20 February 1991) is an Irish author and screenwriter. She has published three novels: Conversations with Friends (2017), Normal People (2018), and Beautiful World, Where Are You (2021). The first two were adapted into the television miniseries Normal People (2020) and Conversations with Friends (2022).
Sally Rooney
20 February 1991
Castlebar, County Mayo, Ireland
- Author
- screenwriter
English
Fiction
Conversations with Friends (2017)
Normal People (2018)
Beautiful World, Where Are You (2021)
Rooney's work has garnered critical acclaim and commercial success, and she is regarded as one of the foremost millennial writers.[1][2][3] Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2022.[4]
Early life and education[edit]
Rooney was born in Castlebar, County Mayo,[5] in 1991, where she also grew up[6] and lives today, after studying in Dublin and a stint in New York City.[7] Her father, Kieran Rooney, worked for Telecom Éireann and her mother, Marie Farrell, ran an arts centre.[6][8][9] Rooney has an older brother and a younger sister.[6] She studied English at Trinity College Dublin (TCD), where she was elected a scholar in 2011.[10] She started (but did not complete) a master's degree in politics there, completing a degree in American literature instead, and graduated with an MA in 2013.[11]
While attending Trinity College Dublin, Rooney was a university debater and eventually became the top debater at the European Universities Debating Championships in 2013,[12][13] later writing of the experience.[14] Before becoming a writer, she worked for a restaurant in an administrative role.[15][16]
Career[edit]
Early career[edit]
Rooney completed her first novel—which she has called "absolute trash"—at age 15.[17] Her first published works were two poems in The Stinging Fly, submitted to the magazine when she was in secondary school.[18] She began writing "constantly" in late 2014. She completed her debut novel, Conversations with Friends, while studying for her master's degree in American literature. She wrote 100,000 words of the book in three months.[17]
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.[9][19][20]