Her latest novel is The Paris Express.
Donoghue has also written the screenplays for Room and The Wonder and nine stage plays. Her next film (adapted with Philippa Lowthorpe from Helen Macdonald’s memoir) is H Is for Hawk.
Born in Dublin, she lives in Ontario with her family.
At Lit Hub Donoghue tagged nine books set on trains and showing how they changed the world. One entry on the list:
Émile Zola, The Beast WithinRead about the other books on the list at Lit Hub.
Probably the most famous train novel is Émile Zola’s La Bête humaine (1890, variously translated as The Beast Within, The Beast in Man, The Human Beast or The Monomaniac). His portrayal of the close three-way partnership between driver, stoker and train—encouraged for mercenary reasons by the Company, but a genuine, overwhelming passion nonetheless—inspired many passages in The Paris Express.
Zola’s lurid plot is easily mocked for its relentless association of railway travel with rape and murder, for both crew and passengers…but his writing is so magnificent, this is the one I will always think of when I hear that haunting choo-choo of a passing train in the night.
La Bête Humaine is among Andrew Martin's ten top books about trains.
--Marshal Zeringue
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