Sally Rooney

Career

Early career

Rooney completed her first novel—which she has called "absolute trash"—at age 15. Her first published works were two poems in The Stinging Fly, submitted to the magazine when she was in secondary school. 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.

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. Bohan contacted Rooney, but Rooney was hesitant to send her any new material at first.

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 eventually sent Bohan a manuscript, and Bohan circulated it to publishers, receiving seven bids.

Conversations with Friends (2017)

Rooney signed with Bohan and 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 & 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.

In March 2017, her short story "Mr Salary" was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Short Story Award. In November 2017, Rooney was announced as editor of the Irish literary magazine The Stinging Fly. She was a contributing writer to the magazine. She oversaw the magazine's two issues in 2018, before handing the editorship over to Danny Denton.

In 2018, Rooney was announced as taking part in the Cúirt International Festival of Literature.

Normal People (2018)

Rooney's second novel, Normal People, was published in September 2018, also by Faber & Faber. The novel grew out of Rooney's exploration of the history between the two main characters of her short story "At the Clinic", which was first published in London-based literary magazine The White Review in 2016. 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 Book Award (formerly the Whitbread) for the Novel category. It was longlisted for the 2019 Dylan Thomas Prize and the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction. It has been translated into 46 languages and earned praise from Barack Obama and Taylor Swift, among others.

Television adaptations

Normal People was made into a 12-part series as a co-production of BBC Three and the online platform Hulu, with filming taking place in Dublin and County Sligo. The series was directed by Lenny Abrahamson and Hettie Macdonald. Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal played Marianne and Connell, respectively. The series was a critical success and earned four Primetime Emmy Award nominations including for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie, Outstanding Directing for a Limited Series, and Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series.

In May 2022, the novel Conversations with Friends was also made into a 12-episode BBC Three/Hulu miniseries, with the same creative team behind Normal People. Director Lenny Abrahamson and co-writer Alice Birch worked on this adaptation, too.

Beautiful World, Where Are You (2021)

In 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 read, "she will be writing a new novel under the working title Beautiful World, Where Are You, examining aesthetics and political crisis." The novel was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the United States and by Faber in the UK and Ireland in September 2021. She did not accept any options for a film adaptation.

Intermezzo (2024)

Rooney's fourth novel, Intermezzo, was released in September 2024. The novel focuses on the complicated relationship between two brothers dealing with grief after their father's death. Central themes include an exploration of complicated family dynamics and the expectations of romantic relationships.

Intermezzo won the 2025 Sky Arts Award for literature. Rooney did not accept the award in person, saying she had been advised against entering the United Kingdom because her support for Palestine Action put her at risk of arrest.

Political views

Rooney describes herself as a feminist and a Marxist; both her parents are socialists and instilled socialist values in Rooney. Rooney has said that her work has a Marxist character, and noted that her characters tend to live in economically precarious conditions despite often being college-educated. In response to claims that her work does not accurately depict working-class experiences, Rooney has said that she understands the working class as made up not just of "particular communities or workers in particular industries" but rather of all people who work for a living instead of having a capital-based income; nevertheless, she admits that higher-earning workers cannot be easily equated to lower-earning ones.

The feminist themes in Rooney's works have made them popular in China, where they have been best sellers.

During the 2018 referendum on the legality of abortion in Ireland, Rooney campaigned for a Yes vote.

Support for Palestine

Rooney's first two books were translated into Hebrew by the Israeli publisher Modan. Modan's request to translate Beautiful World, Where Are You was denied, as Rooney felt it did not comply with the demands of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. In a statement sent to The Independent, she wrote, "The Hebrew-language translation rights to my new novel are still available, and if I can find a way to sell these rights that is compliant with the BDS movement's institutional boycott guidelines, I will be very pleased and proud to do so". In retaliation, two Israeli bookshop chains announced a withdrawal of all of Rooney's titles from their shelves. Modan said it would continue selling the two books it had the rights to. Subsequently, in a letter organized by Artists for Palestine UK, 70 writers and publishers, including Kevin Barry, Rachel Kushner, Geoff Dyer, Pankaj Mishra, Carmen Callil, and Ahdaf Soueif, said they supported Rooney's decision. In October 2024, Rooney signed an open letter pledging not to work with Israeli cultural institutions.

In June 2025, Rooney praised Palestine Action after its members broke into RAF Brize Norton and sprayed the engines of two Airbus A330 MRTT tankers with red paint. Rooney criticised the British government's intention to define the group as a terrorist organisation. She contrasted what she saw as Palestine Action's nonviolent tactics with the intelligence and equipment support the British government gave Israel. She accused the government of "state support for genocide" and said, "those brave enough to break the law in protest [...] deserve our highest respect." She supported a Palestine Action co-founder's attempt in the High Court to block the government's ban before it came into effect on 5 July. In a written submission to the court, Rooney called herself a "committed supporter" of the group and said she would continue to use proceeds from her work to financially support it. She said the ban would prevent her from speaking at future public events in the United Kingdom. Ultimately, the British government banned Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act.

In her submission to the High Court to contest this status in November 2025, Rooney wrote that Element Pictures, the production company behind her BBC adaptations, had cautioned her that it would be illegal for it to make royalty payments to her if she used or was suspected of using the money to support the group. After receiving this caution, she wondered whether Faber & Faber or the BBC would pay her royalties while Palestine Action remained banned. She was "almost certain" that any new work of hers could not be published in Britain and that existing works would be withdrawn from the British market, a situation she called "a truly extreme incursion by the state into the realm of artistic expression". Rooney also said that she had previously supported the use of direct action, "including property sabotage", in relation to environmental causes and that it "stands to reason" that she would support similar actions in relation to the oppression of the Palestinian people.

In May 2026, it was announced that Intermezzo would be published in Hebrew translation by November Books, +972 Magazine, and Local Call, all deemed compliant with BDS. In an interview, Rooney said she had refused to allow Modan to translate Beautiful World, Where Are You after being told that it also published books for the Israeli Defense Ministry.

Television

Published works

Novels

• Conversations with Friends. London: Faber & Faber. 2017. ISBN 9780571333127.
• Normal People. London: Faber & Faber. 2018. ISBN 9780571334643.
• Beautiful World, Where Are You. London: Faber & Faber. 2021. ISBN 9780571365425.
• Intermezzo. London: Faber & Faber. 2024. ISBN 9780571365463.

Short fiction

• After Eleanor Left. Vol. 1. Ballinafad: Winter Pages. Winter 2015. pp. 25–30. ISBN 9780993302909.
• Concord 34. Vol. 63. Dublin: The Dublin Review. Summer 2016. ISBN 9780992991579.
• At the Clinic. Vol. 18. London: The White Review. September 2016. ISBN 9780992756291.
  • Features prototypes of characters Marianne and Connell from 2018's Normal People.
• "Robbie Brady's astonishing late goal takes its place in our personal histories". New Statesman. 10 August 2017.
• Mr Salary. London: Faber & Faber. 3 January 2019. p. 48. ISBN 9780571351954. OCLC 1104816821.

(First published in Granta 135: New Irish Writing Fiction on 19 April 2016.)

• "Color and Light". The New Yorker. 11 March 2019.

(Also published in Being Various: New Irish Short Stories. London: Faber & Faber. 2019. ISBN 9780571342501.)

• "Unread Messages". The New Yorker. 5 July 2021.

Poetry

• "Tírghrá". The Stinging Fly. 2 (15). Spring 2010.
• "Impossibilities". The Stinging Fly. 2 (15). Spring 2010.
• "The Stillest Horse". The Stinging Fly. 2 (23). Winter 2012.
• "After a Road Traffic Accident, Chennai". The Stinging Fly. 2 (28). Summer 2014.
• "The Most Amazing Live Instrumental Performance You Have Ever Heard". The Stinging Fly. 2 (30). Spring 2015. ISBN 9781906539443.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)
• "Seven AM in April". The Stinging Fly. 2 (30). Spring 2015. ISBN 9781906539443.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)
• "An Account of Vital Clues Which Appear To You In A Dream". The Stinging Fly. 2 (30). Spring 2015. ISBN 9781906539443.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)
• "It Is Monday". The Stinging Fly. 2 (30). Spring 2015. ISBN 9781906539443.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)
• "Have I Been Severe?". The Stinging Fly. 2 (30). Spring 2015. ISBN 9781906539443.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)
• "Leaving You". The Stinging Fly. 2 (30). Spring 2015. ISBN 9781906539443.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)

Essays

• Even if you beat me. Vol. 58. The Dublin Review. Spring 2015. ISBN 9780992991524.
• "An App to Cure My Fainting Spells". The New Yorker. 20 November 2017.
• "An Irish Problem". London Review of Books. 40 (10). 24 May 2018.
• "Misreading Ulysses". The Paris Review. 7 December 2022.

Audiobooks

• Sally Rooney (11 May 2020). Two Stories (Audiobook). Narrated by Aofie McMahon & Sam O'Mahony. London: Audible & Faber & Faber.

This audiobook contains unabridged readings of the stories "Mr Salary" and "Color and Light", previously published in Granta and The New Yorker, respectively.

Book reviews

• Rooney, Sally (9 February 2018). "Troubled Marriages, Old and New". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 May 2020.

Reception

• Schwartz, Alexandra (31 July 2017). "A New Kind of Adultery Novel". The New Yorker.
• Collins, Lauren (7 January 2019). "Post and riposte : Sally Rooney's novels of love and late capitalism". Life and Letters. The New Yorker. Vol. 94, no. 43. pp. 24–29.
• Garner, Dwight (8 April 2019). "Sally Rooney's 'Normal People' Explores Intense Love Across Social Classes". The New York Times.
• Martin, Andrew (15 April 2019). "Is Sally Rooney's New Novel as Great as Her First?". The New York Times.
• "'Normal People' Appeals Across Genders And Generations". NPR. 16 April 2019.
• Grady, Constance (3 September 2019). "The cult of Sally Rooney". Vox.
• Baucina, Anastasia (6 May 2020). "How Sally Rooney Gave Normal People Radical Politics". Jacobin. Retrieved 4 September 2023.
• Eakin, Emily (12 February 2020). "He Courted Me Through My Favorite Novel". The New York Times. Consider Sally Rooney's 2017 'Conversations With Friends,' widely heralded as the first great novel of millennial life.
• "The corporeal imagination of Sally Rooney's 'Normal People'". America Magazine. 8 May 2020.
• Sheahan, Fionná (23 May 2020). "It's Marianne's fault we can't get a government to satisfy Normal People". Irish Independent. Retrieved 23 May 2020. The author of Normal People is a self-professed Marxist... her politics seeps through her writing. It's no accident the central protagonists of the book that has captured the nation's imagination are the rich girl living in the mansion and the poor boy whose mother works as her family's cleaner. The TV version glosses over the discussions around 'The Communist Manifesto' and the feminist bible 'The Golden Notebook'.

Awards

• 2017 The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year
• 2018 Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year – Normal People
• 2018 Costa Book Awards – Normal People
• 2019 Encore Award – Normal People
• 2022 Dalkey Literary Awards – Beautiful World, Where Are You
• 2024 Irish Book Awards Author of the Year
• 2025 Sky Arts Award for literature – Intermezzo

Personal life

Rooney lives in her childhood hometown of Castlebar and is married to John Prasifka, a mathematics teacher.