bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

sponsorType

authorLocations

authors

paywallTypes

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

factSheets

series

knowledgeQuestion

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

copyrighted

customTimezone

liveContents

Agence France-Presse

Irish author Sally Rooney, hailed as the “voice of a generation” after the runaway success of 2018’s Normal People, examines modern love in all its glory and friction in her fourth novel, Intermezzo.
The book, published on September 24, includes all the elements of Rooney’s hugely popular oeuvre: keen observations on relationships, spiky, realistic dialogues played out in Dublin houses, erotic scenes and existential conversations on the patriarchy and capitalism.
The story focuses on two estranged brothers, Peter and Ivan, who come together in the weeks after their father’s death, and the romantic relationships they forge in a delicate period of mourning.
Six years after her debut novel, Conversations with Friends (2017), the characters are now thirtysomethings like the author, and agonise over questions of parenthood and the climate crisis.












View this post on Instagram























A post shared by dee | inactive era (@filmssart)



Rooney’s pared-back and realistic style has also evolved, with precise dialogues dipping into vivid, internal monologues.
“I feel like the older I get the more freedom I have to write about a greater range of life experiences,” the 33-year-old author told British newspaper The Guardian in an interview.
The publicity-shy Irish author, who grew up in the small town of Castlebar in County Mayo, was not prepared for the success of her second novel, Normal People, with its 2020 BBC television adaptation exploding in popularity during the lockdown.

Rooney has enjoyed a rare literary breakthrough into the mainstream, speaking to the angst of the times and capturing the ways in which “millennials” and internet generations navigate friendships, romantic connections and family relations.
Her books have been cast by social media spaces like “BookTok” into a genre termed “sad girl lit” – a term Rooney says she is unfamiliar with – centred around young women with few material problems but who are fraught with internal turmoil.
She has won praise from the likes of Barack Obama and Taylor Swift.
In 2022, Rooney was included in Time magazine’s 100 most influential people list, described as a “voice of a generation” and the “Snapchat Salinger” – a tag that she is eager to distance herself from.
The success of Normal People felt “too much”, she told The Guardian. “I don’t want to be the centre of attention like that ever again,” she added.

Rooney still struggles with her notoriety, watched closely by millions of fans but also detractors, who deem her writing “simple” and “overrated”.
With her unostentatious style and brunette bangs, she gives few interviews, has stopped doing book tours, and says she is awkward when asked to pose for photos.
“I feel a lot of anxiety about my privacy and the privacy of my family and loved ones … I’m a very private person and I like to go unnoticed,” Rooney told the Irish Times newspaper, adding that she sometimes regretted not writing under a pseudonym like Italian writer Elena Ferrante.
With five literary prizes and millions of copies sold, Rooney hopes to break free of the label of the “young novelist”.
After 10 years in Dublin and a stint in New York, she now lives with her husband – a maths professor whom she met during university at Trinity College, Dublin – in the peaceful Irish countryside, near where she grew up.

Rooney is open about being a Marxist, her politics seeping into the wry commentary by her fictional characters on topics ranging from global wars to Dublin’s housing crisis.
In 2021, she refused to allow her third book, Beautiful World, Where Are You?, to be translated into Hebrew by an Israeli publishing house because of her stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and in support of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement.
Three years on, she says she will not “stay silent in the face of genocide”.
“The horrors unfolding in Gaza feel to me like a turning point in history. How are we allowing this to happen?”, Rooney told the Irish Times.
Rooney has always denied writing autobiographical works, but many have seen her alter ego in the character of Alice, the young novelist in her third book who struggles to come to terms with her fame and takes refuge in a small coastal town in Ireland.
“There is a sense of having lived a lot of life very quickly, in quite a compressed sort of time frame,” Rooney told Vogue when Beautiful World was published. “I think the book dramatises some of those challenges.”


How Victoria’s Secret transformed fashion, media and retail in the US: a new book explores the brand’s impact as its Fashion Show returns after 6 years, featuring Tyra Banks, Adriana Lima and Gigi Hadid

For Riley Keough, finishing mum Lisa Marie Presley’s book on Elvis, life, love was a duty

South Korean author Han Kang wins 2024 Nobel Literature Prize for ‘intense poetic prose’

Trump secretly sent Putin Covid tests in 2020 despite US shortage, new Bob Woodward book says

Books and literature

Queen of ‘sad girl lit’ Sally Rooney still publicity-shy as fourth novel Intermezzo drops

Writer Sally Rooney examines modern love in all its glory and friction in her fourth novel Intermezzo. She is still not used to how much attention she receives, she has told interviewers. Photo: AFP

An adaptation of Normal People exploded in popularity during the pandemic lockdown.

Intermezzo, published on September 24, focuses on two estranged brothers who come together in the weeks after their father’s death. Photo: AP

The cover of Rooney’s 2021 book Beautiful World, Where Are You.

4 things to know about Olivia Rodrigo ahead of singer’s Guts World Tour Hong Kong debut

Olivia Rodrigo on stage during her Guts World Tour date in Seoul, South Korea. Photo: Instagram/@portadoliviardbr

Bridgerton season 4’s casting of Yerin Ha as Sophie does not mean it’s ‘ruined’ at all

Korean-Australian actress Yerin Ha. Photo: Gavin Bond/Netflix

Korean-Australian actress Yerin Ha has been cast as Sophie Baek, the female lead, in season four of the Netflix hit period drama Bridgerton. Photo: Gavin Bond/Netflix

Yerin Ha and Luke Thompson will play the female and male leads of Bridgerton season four. Photo: Gavin Bond/Netflix

Feral, illiterate, doomed: Generation Alpha are a quarter of the world’s population, and people are worried about them

Generation Alpha kids, born to millennial parents, make up more than quarter of the world’s population – and there are already concerns that these kids are not “all right”. Photo: Shutterstock

In recent months, the alphas have emerged as TikTok’s newest supervillain. Photo: Shutterstock

When the last of Generation Alpha arrive this December, they will close the largest cohort of children ever to exist on Earth. Photo: Shutterstock

Illiteracy is among the most frequent and damning critiques levelled against Gen Alpha online. Photo: Shutterstock 

Roblox is a multiplayer online game and video game creation system popular with Gen Alpha kids. Photo: Getty Images

Teachers cite lack of reading skills as one of the reasons they are leaving the profession. Photo: Shutterstock

Digital loans of popular series such as Diary of a Wimpy Kid remain strong at US libraries. Photo: Shutterstock

Alphas “are some of the hardest-hit kids when it comes to reading”. Photo: Shutterstock

Reading quietly in a park has gone viral, thanks to Indian Instagram page Cubbon Reads – now there are chapters across the world

Cubbon Reads is a community reading initiative that takes place in a park in Bangalore, India. Photo: SCMP

Cubbon Reads is a community initiative that takes place in a park in Bangalore, India – participants quietly read their books, and there is no marketing. The idea has gone global. Photo: Anita Rao Kashi

The writer joins Cubbon Reads on a Saturday morning, with a book and a coffee. Photo: Anita Rao Kashi

Cubbon Reads co-founders Shruti Sah (right) and Harsh Snehanshu. Photo: Anita Rao Kashi

The book stack at the end of each Saturday session of Cubbon Reads. Photo: Anita Rao Kashi

Some of the attendees of Cubbon Reads in Bangalore, India. Photo: Anita Rao Kashi

Books being read by participants in Kuala Lumpur Reads in the Malaysian capital, one of 70 worldwide “affiliate chapters” of Cubbon Reads. Photo: Instagram/@kualalumpurreads

Cubbon Park is an oasis in India’s tech capital, Bangalore. Photo: Shutterstock

Lifestyle

Arts & Culture

Entertainment

Culture

Books

Irish author is growing with her characters, as fourth novel Intermezzo shows, but she is yet to grow used to how much attention she gets


Irish author is growing with her characters, as fourth novel Intermezzo shows, but she is yet to grow used to how much attention she gets.


TV shows and streaming video

Fame and celebrity

Ireland