'Some of my biggest influences included Florence Nightingale's Notes on Nursing my thoughtful nine-year-old daughter the hunger strikes (in some cases to death) of Irish Republican prisoners in 1981 the sodden bogland landscape of Ireland a friend whose daughter struggles with anorexia and the Catholic hymns, prayers and scriptures of my childhood. 'The decision to let it be pure fiction freed me to set it in mid-19th century Ireland, in the shadow of the Irish potato famine, and to find some light in the darkness.' Writing aids It took so long for me to find a way in: because no one of the real 'fasting girls' cases was quite right for my purposes, I kept setting the idea aside until it finally occurred to me (duh!) to make up a fictional story about the phenomenon.

'At least 20 years ago, I came across one of the 50 true cases of 'fasting girls' and I was transfixed with curiosity. Emma Donoghue takes us through the process of writing the book, including the very present-day concerns at its core. Nominated for the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize, the latest novel by the acclaimed author of Room is inspired by 'fasting girls' in Europe and North America between the 16th and 20th centuries. Not for the first time this year, she’s the standout in a film that, given the remarkable personnel involved, really ought to pack a greater punch.The Wonder follows the mystery of a devout Irish girl who remains healthy after fasting for several months, and the English nurse charged with determining whether the girl is a miracle or a hoax. Pugh’s emblematic, muddy-hemmed blue dress - designed by Odile Dicks-Mireaux - marks her out against the windswept exteriors. The bookending of the film with a contemporary studio setting and thoughts about storytelling falls a bit flat, as does the repeated use of a bird-in-cage thaumatrope.Īri Wegner’s cinematography finds striking tableaux against a backdrop that between the dramatic outdoors and the snotty interiors is almost overpoweringly green. He’s helped by a stellar cast who bring nuance to characters that - with lesser actors and writing - could have played like 19th century cartoons from Punch Magazine. It requires all of the director’s not inconsiderable skill to make these elements work. Every plot progression and twist - from the big reveal to the ludicrous denouement - seems designed to make the average telenovela look like The Bicycle Thieves. Unless you are absolutely fine with weapons-grade melodrama, this is possibly not the movie for you. Still, the mystery of the starving child remains.

The wonder book by emma donoghue