Maggie O’Farrell’s novel Hamnet, set in an England stalked by a plague that kills the young son of William Shakespeare, won this year’s prestigious Women’s Prize for Fiction in the United Kingdom. A study of bereavement, the novel charts how life is transformed into art: the child at the center of Hamnet is believed to have inspired one of the world’s most famous plays. She discusses the origins of her fascination with Shakespeare’s son with Bernard Cornwell, author of Fools and Mortals, a fictionalized account of the relationship between Shakespeare and his brother.
