Normal People

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). Normal People was adapted into a 2020 television series by Hulu, RTÉ, Screen Ireland and the BBC. Rooney's work has garnered critical acclaim and commercial success, and she is regarded as one of the foremost millennial writers. Rooney completed her first novel—which she has described as "absolute trash"—at the age of 15. Her first published work was two poems in The Stinging Fly, submitted to the magazine when she was still 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, and Bohan contacted Rooney. Rooney gave Bohan a manuscript, and Bohan circulated it to publishers, receiving seven bids