Room

Room is the story of a five-year-old called Jack, who lives in a single room with his Ma and has never been outside. When he turns five, he starts to ask questions, and his mother reveals to him that there is a world beyond the walls.

Told entirely in Jack’s voice, Room is no horror story or tearjerker, but a celebration of resilience and the love between parent and child.

An international bestseller as soon as it was published in August 2010, Room has now sold well over two million copies.

It won the :

• Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year
• Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize (for best Canadian novel)
• Commonwealth Prize (Canada & Carribbean Region)
• Canadian Booksellers’ Association Libris Awards (Fiction Book and Author of the Year)
• Forest of Reading Evergreen Award
• W. H. Smith Paperback of the Year Award
• University of Canberra Book of the Year

It was shortlisted for the :

• Man Booker Prize
• Orange Prize
• Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award
• International Author of the Year (Galaxy National Book Awards)
• Governor General’s Award
• Trillium English Book Award

The American Library Association gave it an Alex Award (for an adult book with special appeal to readers 12-18) and the Indie Choice Award for Adult Fiction.

The Canadian Library Association named it as an Honour Book in their Canadian Young Adult Book Award.

The four-voiced audiobook version won one of three Publishers Weekly Listen Up Awards and an Earphones Award.

The New York Times named it as one of their six best fiction titles of 2010 and the Washington Post included it in their Editors’ Top Ten. Room was also winner of a Salon Book Award for Fiction, an NPR Best Book of 2010, a New Yorker Reviewers’ Favorite, Bloomberg’s 2010 Top Novel, The Week Magazine’s Top Book 2010, and featured on many ‘best of the year’ lists including those of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Christian Science Monitor. Room was Amazon.ca and Indigo’s Best Book (as well as a Heather’s Pick) of 2010, fiction winner of the Goodreads Choice Awards, Top Pick of the Channel 4 TV Book Club, and also chosen by the Richard & Judy Book Club. Room was chosen as one of twenty-five titles to be given away by tens of thousands on World Book Night UK 2012.

Room has been translated into thirty-five languages, with special educational editions in German and Dutch.


Room was inspired by… having kids; the locked room is a metaphor for the claustrophobic, tender bond of parenthood. I borrowed observations, jokes, kid grammar and whole dialogues from our son Finn, who was five while I was writing it. Room was also inspired by... ancient folk motifs of walled-up virgins who give birth (e.g. Rapunzel), often to heroes (e.g. Danaë and Perseus). Room was also inspired by… the Fritzl family’s escape from their dungeon in Austria – though I doubt I’ll ever use contemporary headlines as a launching point again, since I didn’t like being even occasionally accused of ‘exploitation’ or tagged ‘Fritzl writer’. But on the whole, publishing my seventh novel – and having the great good fortune to win new readers all over the world – has been a delight. - Donoghue EmmaM