Ideas usually come a lot more slowly to me and more uncertainly than that. It should start on his birthday and it should end when they go back to the room and say goodbye to it. I thought all in one go that it should be called ‘Room’ and that the escape should happen exactly in the middle. As I was driving along I suddenly thought what an interesting perspective a 5 year-old boy like that would have on the world. I usually don’t pay much attention to the headlines but I think because my kids were four and a half, and one, something just lodged in my mind about how you would mother in a locked room. I was in the car and just a couple of days earlier I had heard about the Fritzl kidnapping case in Austria. Emma told us all the juicy secrets about writing and screenplays.ĭo you remember how ‘Room’ came to you? Do you remember what you were doing at the time? As we were lucky enough to have her in town for the Vancouver International Film Festival, where the film was screened, we couldn’t miss the opportunity to talk to the literary legend.
This year ‘Room’ was released to positive reviews at film festivals around the world and saw its regular release in theatres on the 30th of October. Her first novel “Stir Fry” was published in 1994 and she has written 7 more novels, short story collections, radio and stage plays, since then. ‘Room’ tells the story of Ma and Jack, who are similarly trapped in a room for seven years, by their kidnapper Old Nick, in small town America. Her story was inspired by the Austrian man who kidnapped and held his own daughter hostage for decades, and forced her to have and raise seven children.
It is not surprising at all that Emma Donoghue wrote the screenplay for ‘Room’ before writing the book. When you read ‘Room’, its cinematic quality strikes you very early on. I remember how the reviews were full of surprise at the innovation of the story and at the unusual choice of narrator. I remember hearing about ‘Room’ when it was shortlisted for the Booker in 2010.
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