Named a Most Anticipated Read of 2026 by The New Yorker • The New York Times • GQ • The Guardian • BBC • Libby • The Sydney Morning Herald • Featured in BBC's Spring Preview • Oprah Daily • Goodreads • Harpers Bazaar • Los Angeles Times

“Just when you are thinking that [Land] is as hard-edged as realism can get, O’Farrell will take the narration inside the mind of a dog, or an unborn child making out the shape of a handprint. . . . All of this is beautifully done, with descriptions both intricate and locked into character: I don’t think, for example, that I have ever read a better account of the moment when Latin starts to make sense than her vignette of Liam trying to translate Pliny. . . . The wonder of O’Farrell’s novel—easily her most ambitious—is that it soars above every one of the risks I have listed and to which any less ridiculously talented novelist would have succumbed. Her great-great-grandfather—who also helped map post-Famine Ireland—would be proud of her.” —The Scotsman
“Land is a vast, darkly magical novel from a masterful writer. Maggie O’Farrell's historical fiction illuminates not only the past, but our own moment in time. A brilliant and powerful novel.” —Alice Winn, author of In Memoriam

“Surely Maggie O’Farrell’s star could not be much higher following Hamnet? But, with the publication of this, her 10th novel, it seems certain to climb even farther. . . . A magisterial multigenerational epic. . . . With haunting vividness and humanity, [Land] conjures a nation blighted by catastrophe, and a family trying to find their way afterwards, caught in the crosshairs of history. Commingling colonisation, rebellion, love, loss and survival, it is a novel to sink into, as intricate as a map, as multilayered and mysterious as the land it depicts—confirming O’Farrell as a writer at the height of her powers.” —The Bookseller

“Skillfully drawn. . . . [and] radiant. . . . Steeped in Irish history and folklore, [Land is] alive with a sense of wonder.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“A stunning and gorgeous epic. . . . O'Farrell paints a devasting yet tender portrait of Irish history.” ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Sweeping, elemental and . . . possibly her best yet.” —Esquire (India), ‘Books We’re Excited About in 2026’

“In her latest historical gut-punch, the Irish author of Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait returns to her home turf with an intimate family saga nestled with a story that stretches far beyond the scale of human lives into the deep time of geography itself.” —Oprah Daily

“Expansive and intimate, this beautiful book swallowed me whole. I loved it, and will miss its characters terribly.” —Charlotte McConaghy, author of Wild Dark Shore

“Haunting and elemental in its evocation, Land is a novel of startling imagination and power. Upon finishing it, I did not feel so much that I had read a book as lived inside it.” —Ferdia Lennon, author of Glorious Exploits

“A stunning achievement. Maggie O’Farrell’s most ambitious novel yet, and maybe her most moving. I adored it.” —Bobby Palmer, author of Isaac and the Egg and Main Characters

“Wondrous and magisterial.” —Kamila Shamsie, author of Home Fire and The Best of Friends

“A deep-mapping of a place and its people, a heart-bursting story of resilience and love. Land is simply the best novel I’ve read in years.” —Louise Kennedy, author of Trespasses

“A breathtaking hymn to the sanctity of natural spaces, operating on timescales both intimate and geological. I finished Land moved not only by the vivid lives of its human characters, but the thrumming, gorgeous presence of its mosses, waters, winds and skies.” —Daniel Mason, author of North Woods

“This deep, dense, heartrending novel is the best of Maggie O’Farrell, who is the best of writers, modern and alive, with the detailed brilliance of great nineteenth-century storytellers. All I need as a reader is in Land.” —Amy Bloom, author of In Love

“Land is as visceral as a novel can get. It feels deeply and it tells deeply, both of nature and of the small tragedy of man. It's rare to find a story so grand told with such a fine brush. Land read to me as ancient and brand-new all at once, and something best experienced by diving into it headfirst.” —Yael van der Wouden, author of The Safekeep

“A work of towering imagination and empathy.” —Roisín O’Donnell, author of Nesting

“An atmospheric and immersive read.” —BBC