Finally it occurred to me that if I was still so fascinated by the Fasting Girls, two decades on, I should drop my usual method of writing a historical novel based on a real case, and let myself invent a story. Some were low comedy, such as the case of Ann Moore, exposed as a cheat in 1813. Some were too tragic, even for a writer with my dark tastes Sarah Jacob, for instance, a little girl who died while being ‘watched' by nurses in 1869. But I never found one real case that rang that little bell in me, telling me this was the story I had to tell in a novel. It seemed to say a lot about what it’s meant to be a girl - in many Western countries, from the sixteenth century right through to the twentieth - that these girls became celebrities by not eating. I was instantly intrigued by these cases, which seemed to echo medieval saints starving as an act of penance, and also modern anorexics, but weren't exactly the same as either. It was a nominee for a Shirley Jackson Award (for the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic) as well as a Medici Award for book-club favourites.ĭonoghue has adapted (with director Sebastián Lelio and Alice Birch) The Wonder into a feature film with Element Pictures (with whom she made Room) and House Productions, coming from Netflix in 2022.Ī personal note: I came across the Fasting Girl phenomenon back in the mid-1990s - so long ago that I can’t even remember where I first read about these girls and young women (and very occasionally older women or men). The Wonder is a tale of two strangers who transform each other's lives, a psychological thriller, and a story of love pitted against evil.ĭonoghue’s ninth novel – her first historical one set in her homeland of Ireland - was a bestseller in Canada even before publication, and was shortlisted for the Giller Prize there, as well as for Ireland's Bord Gáis Energy Eason Novel of the Year and Kerry Group Novel of the Year.

Tourists have flocked to the cabin of eleven-year-old Anna O'Donnell, and a journalist has come down to cover the sensation. An English nurse, Lib Wright, is summoned to a tiny village to observe what some are claiming as a medical anomaly or a miracle - a girl said to have survived without food for months.

The Wonder (New York: Little Brown Toronto: HarperCollins Canada London: Picador, 2016).

The wonder book by emma donoghue