Judith und Hamnet

Among the New York Times' top 5 novels of the year: Maggie O’Farrell tells one of the most thrilling stories ever: the story of how life becomes literature. Magical! Agnes sees him and knows: He will be the one. Yet the frail Latin teacher from Stratford-upon-Avon is not even eighteen. Better to kiss him quickly. Better to expect a child before anyone can forbid her to marry. Fourteen years later, they have three children. But how will they manage as long as her husband is up to who knows what with those plays? He is in London when eleven-year-old Hamnet feels the lumps on his twin sister Judith's neck. When Agnes recognizes the Black Death in her son's gaze. Maggie O’Farrell reinterprets the greatest of all dramatists, both as a lover and as a father. Above all, she tells for the first time the unforgettable story of his headstrong, tenderly bold wife: Agnes. "Judith and Hamnet" magnificently intertwines love and death, inconsolable grief and hope, Hamnet's lonely death and his survival in the work of the absent father. Maggie O’Farrell is an absolute phenomenon. Clearly, she can do just about anything she wants when writing. "Judith and Hamnet" is a brilliant novel. O’Farrell's stroke of genius lies in understanding the scarcity of information about Shakespeare's private life as a literary opportunity – and in the connection she makes between his deceased son and his greatest play. What elevates Maggie O’Farrell's work to another level are her keen observational skills and her characters, so heartbreakingly alive that you sometimes want to take them in your arms. One of the most touching novels I have read in decades. An outstanding historical novel.