Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell, UK, 2020
(Winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020) Using a mixture of fact, surmise and fiction, O’Farrell has created a beautiful story ostensibly centred around William Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet, but actually focused on Hamnet’s mother, Anne (or Agnes) Hathaway. Agnes is a country girl – a free spirit – with a close connection to nature; …