Sally Rooney: Literary Phenomenon of the Decade
[written in January 2022 and has not been updated]
If we look at careers from a spectrum of failure to success , we can confidently say that the story of Sally Rooney is victorious from the start.
Sally Rooney is an Irish author and screenwriter who has risen to fame in recent years with her extraordinarily accomplished novel. She made a highly successful debut with her novel Conversations with Friends and followed that with an even bigger one with Normal People which sold millions internationally and was adapted into a TV series not so long after being published. She made a name for herself pretty quickly in the community and amongst the fiction readers. And now with her latest addition to her book Beautiful World, Where Are You becoming a hot topic even before it was published in early September of 2021, we can see that
there is a component in her work that attracts the masses.
Her work has taken the international literary community by storm. The number of copies sold of her books shows us that her writing style has resonated with a lot of readers.
But what is it about her writing that makes it so unique?
When we think about the characters in fiction novels, old and new classics, modern contemporary or even fantasy, we are able to categorize their age range into two. Characters are either in their teen years or coming of age time of their lives, or over the age where uncertainty isn’t much of a prominent fixture in their lives and when life is a bit more settled. This
creates a huge gap in the literature regarding our 20s. The times in our lives when everything is so complicated and so vague. Nobody knows what they are doing or where they are going. Uncertainty is the biggest part of our thoughts, daily lives and relationships.
This is where Sally Rooney comes into play. Her novels are constructed around these unstable years. The relationships that we build, romantically and platonically, and how they affect our behaviors and futures are the main themes of her work.
The subject matter she covers and the way she covers them, so raw with emotions and also with imperfect characters, fills this gap in the fiction genre. Writing about unhappy women in an unhappy world, she dissects the way we feel, think and act. Provides a realistic path that -one way or another- we all know and eventually follow.
The miscommunications and misunderstanding, developing and losing relationships, and friends are what happens to people when they are 20-something trying to figure out who they are. And because Sally Rooney focuses on this matter, she is able to attract readers from this demographic. Especially people who are still in the process of pursuing their university education.
I am excited to see what is more to come Sally Rooney. A writer with a great understanding of her audience who also possesses knowledge about current issues and media.
