Marita Conlon-McKenna was born on 5 November 1956 and is an Irish author of children's books and adult fiction.
13 Facts About Marita Conlon-McKenna
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Marita Conlon-McKenna is best known for her Famine-era historical children's book Under the Hawthorn Tree, the first book of the Children of the Famine trilogy, which was published in 1990 and achieved immediate success.
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Marita Conlon-McKenna attended school at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Mount Anville.
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Marita Conlon-McKenna excelled at school but deferred a place at university to care for her father.
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Marita Conlon-McKenna married James McKenna at age 20 and had jobs in the family business, in a bank, and with a travel agency.
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Marita Conlon-McKenna took an interest in writing and enrolled in writing classes in UCD, including courses in Anglo-Irish literature, women's studies and children's literature.
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Marita Conlon-McKenna went on to write more books for young readers.
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Marita Conlon-McKenna's characters are often depicted in challenging situations or life events.
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Marita Conlon-McKenna's debut novel for adults, The Magdalen, was a number-one bestseller in 1999, telling the story of a young pregnant woman sent to a Magdalene Laundry in 1950s Ireland.
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Marita Conlon-McKenna said that she naturally made a shift from children to adult's writing when she decided to write a story about the Magdalene Laundries.
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Marita Conlon-McKenna carried out extensive historical research for her 1916-era novel Rebel Sisters.
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In 2020, Marita Conlon-McKenna published The Hungry Road, a historical novel set in Skibbereen, County Cork during the Great Famine.
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Marita Conlon-McKenna is a promoter of the arts and was the chairperson of Irish PEN.