Hamnet

Hamnet, winner of the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction and a No. 1 bestseller in 2021, is a richly sensuous and deeply moving novel that tells the story of two extraordinary people, a love that binds them, and a loss that threatens to tear them apart. On a summer day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon falls suddenly ill, and her twin brother, Hamnet, desperately searches for help. Their mother, Agnes, is tending her garden of medicinal herbs, and their father is away working in London—unaware that Hamnet will not survive the week. Inspired by the life of the son of a famous playwright, whose story has largely been forgotten, Hamnet illuminates the human experiences behind the name immortalized in one of the most celebrated plays in history.