Room: Picador Collection

Originally published for the London premiere, this fully revised and updated edition was published to coincide with the Broadway premiere in Spring 2023

Emma Donoghue is a novelist, screenwriter and playwright who lives in Canada. Her novel Room won the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Canada and the Caribbean) and was shortlisted for the Man Booker and Orange Prizes as well as the Scotiabank Giller Prize. It sold more than two million copies. Donoghue scripted the Canadian-Irish film Room, which was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Her fiction (short and long) ranges from the contemporary (Stir-Fry, Hood, Landing, Touchy Subjects, Akin) to the historical (Slammerkin, The Sealed Letter, Astray, Frog Music, The Wonder, The Pull of the Stars). Donoghue's books for young readers are The Lotterys Plus One and The Lotterys More Or Less.

"Emma Donoghue's writing is superb alchemy, changing innocence into horror and horror into tenderness.Roomis a book to read in one sitting. When it's over you look up: the world looks the same but you are somehow different and that feeling lingers for days."—Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler's Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry
"I lovedRoom. Such incredible imagination, and dazzling use of language. And with all this, an entirely credible, endearing little boy. It's unlike anything I've ever read before."—Anita Shreve, author of The Pilot's Wife and A Change in Altitude
"Roomis that rarest of entities, an entirely original work of art. I mean it as the highest possible praise when I tell you that I can't compare it to any other book. Suffice to say that it's potent, darkly beautiful, and revelatory."—Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours and By Nightfall
"Powerful.... Seen entirely through Jack's eyes and childlike perceptions, the developments in this novel--there are enough plot twists to provide a dramatic arc of breathtaking suspense--are astonishing.... Donoghue brilliantly portrays the psyche of a child raised in captivity...will keep readers rapt."—Publishers Weekly
"a novel so disturbing that we defy you to stop thinking about it, days later.... This blend of allegory and true crime (Donoghue has said she was influenced by several recent news stories) is beautifully served by Jack's wise but innocent voice.... And while a first-person, child-narrated tale can sometimes feel like a gimmick, the enviable trick here is that Donoghue makes you want to stay with Ma and Jack, whether they're in their own private prison or out in the so-called free world."—Sara Nelson,O Magazine
"a bravura performance"—ELLE
"Only a handful of authors have ever known how to get inside the mind of a child and then get what they know on paper. Henry James, Mark Twain, William Faulkner, and, more recently, Jean Stafford and Eric Kraft come to mind, and after that one gropes for names. But now they have company. Emma Donoghue's latest novel,Room, is narrated by a 5-year-old boy so real you could swear he was sitting right beside you.... Room is so beautifully contrived that it never once seems contrived. But be warned: once you enter, you'll be Donoghue's willing prisoner right down to the last page."—Malcolm Jones,Newsweek
"one of the most affecting and subtly profound novels of the year"—Ron Charles,The Washington Post
"a riveting, powerful novel.... Donoghue's inventive storytelling is flawless and absorbing. She has a fantastic ability to build tension in scenes where most of the action takes place in the 12-by-12 room where her central characters reside. Her writing has pulse-pounding sequences that cause the reader's eyes to race over the pages to find out what happens next....Roomis likely to haunt readers for days, if not longer. It is, hands down, one of the best books of the year."—Liz Raftery,The Boston Globe
"remarkable.... Jack's voice is one of the pure triumphs of the novel: in him, she has invented a child narrator who is one of the most engaging in years - his voice so pervasive I could hear him chatting away during the day when I wasn't reading the book. Donoghue rearranges language to evoke the sweetness of a child's learning without making him coy or overly darling; Jack is lovable simply because he is lovable.... This is a truly memorable novel, one that can be read through myriad lenses - psychological, sociological, political. It presents an utterly unique way to talk about love, all the while giving us a fresh, expansive eye on the world in which we live."

—Aimee Bender,The New York Times Book Review