Publication Date: June 2, 2026
Print Length: 400 pages
New York Times Bestseller
Editors’ pick: Best Books of the Year So Far 2026
Previous Publications:
After You’d Gone (2000)
The Hand that First Held Mine (2010)
Instructions for a Heatwave (2014)
This Must be the Place (2013)
I am, I am, I am: Seventeen brushes with Death (2017)
Hamnet (2020)
The Marriage Portrait (2022)
SYNOPSIS
In her historical novel, The Land, Maggie O’Farrell, author of the award-winning novel, Hamnet, portrays the family of a mapmaker, Tomas, who has been hired to chart the topographical changes across Ireland in the 1860s, following the Great Hunger that killed over a million people and forced two million more to emigrate.
O’Farrell was inspired to write this novel from family stories regarding her great-great-grandfather who worked for the Ordnance Survey in Ireland, not long after the Great Hunger. In this multi-generation family narrative, O’Farrell follows the varying fate of Tomas’s children as they struggle to survive in a land dotted with empty villages and communal graves that also harbors sacred groves, magical springs and enchanted forests.
Set against a tragic period in Irish history, O’Farrell fills her novel with Irish mysticism, as she describes the dogged resilience of the Irish people, including those who remain devoted to their land as well as those who were forced to emigrate from their beloved Ireland.
REVIEWS AND AUTHOR INFORMATION
Mozley, Fiona, “Maggie O’Farrell draws a new map of 19th-Century Ireland,” The New York Times, June 2, 2026, Book Review: ‘Land,’ by Maggie O’Farrell – The New York Times
Harrison, Melissa, “Land by Maggie O’Farrell review – an ambisiouts story of mapmaking in Ireland,” The Guardian, June 1, 2026. Land by Maggie O’Farrell review – an ambitious story of mapmaking in Ireland | Fiction | The Guardian
Waldman, Katy, “Maggie O’Farrell and the art of inventing the past,” The New Yorker, June 1, 2026. “Land,” Reviewed | The New Yorker
Starkey, David, “Book review ‘Land; by Maggie O’Farrell, Santa Barbara Independent, June 15, 2026. Book Review | ‘Land’ by Maggie O’Farrell – The Santa Barbara Independent
Heath, Nicola and Claire Nichols, “Maggie O’Farrell sets her latest novel, Land, against the backdrop of the Great Famine in Ireland,” The Book Show, July 2, 2026, Maggie O’Farrell sets her latest novel, Land, against the backdrop of the Great Famine in Ireland – ABC News
Gannon, Genevieve, “Book Club: Land by Maggie O’Farrell,” Women’s Weekly, June 15, 2026. Book Club: Land By Maggie O’Farrell
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Why has O’Farrell chosen to title her book The Land? What role does “the land” play in the individual stories of Tomas and his children?
How well does O’Farrell portray the plight of the Irish in the aftermath of the Great Hunger, the resulting emigration, and the country’s troubled relationships with local landlords and the English soldiers who control the land?
What is the symbolism behind Tomas’s mapping endeavors to chart out the changes in Ireland after the Great Hunger as well as his desire to reveal his country’s deeper history housed within the country’s sacred forests and springs?
In what ways do Edna, Liam, Rose and Eugene each find different ways to survive in light of Ireland’s economic troubles?
