Audrey Magee

Born in Ireland, Magee studied German and French at University College Dublin and journalism at Dublin City University.[6] For 12 years, she worked as a journalist, writing for publications such as The Times, The Irish Times, The Observer, and The Guardian.[6]

In 2014, Magee published The Undertaking, her debut novel.[4] It was published by Atlantic Books.[7] The novel is set in World War II-era Germany and "tells the story of Peter Faber, a German soldier fighting on the Eastern front, who marries Katharina Spinell, a woman he has never met, in order to escape the horrors of the battlefield for a few days."[7]

She wrote The Undertaking with the goal of trying to understand "what it was like to have been an ordinary German during the Second World War."[3] Magee took a "long time" to write the novel, as she "struggled with the novel's cruelty and indifference."[3] To cope, she took walks and drank tea.[3] A review of the novel in The New York Times said: "To write a story that doesn't allow for much sympathy, that keeps readers at a remove from the central characters, is one of the greatest challenges an author can undertake. That Magee succeeds as well as she does is impressive."[4]

Magee lives in Wicklow with her husband and three daughters.[8]

Her novel The Colony – which "follows two outsiders who travel to a small island off the west coast of Ireland in search of answers"[9] – was longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize.[10]

• Official website