Emma
Donoghue (born 24 October 1969) is an Irish-born playwright, literary
historian and novelist now living in Canada. Her 1995 novel Hood won the
Stonewall Book Award and Slammerkin (2000) won the Ferro-Grumley Award
for Lesbian Fiction. Her most recent collection of short stories, Touchy
Subjects was published in 2006.

This
is the forty-second post in a series highlighting the best gay and
lesbian authors from the 20th  century (with a few before and after that
period) who have recorded in fiction, and nonfiction, the history of
gay people telling what life is, and was, during an important time of
history.

Biography
Emma
Donoghue was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1969.The youngest of eight
children, her father is the academic literary critic Denis Donoghue. She
has a first-class honours Bachelor of Arts degree from University
College Dublin (in English and French) and a PhD in English from the
University of Cambridge. Her thesis was on friendship between men and
women in 18th century fiction. While in Cambridge she lived in a women's
co-op, an experience which inspired her short story "The Welcome"
(collected in Touchy Subjects).In 1998 she moved to Canada and became a
Canadian citizen in 2004 She lives in London, Ontario with her partner
and their two children.

Work
Donoghue's first novel was 1994's
Stir Fry, a contemporary coming of age novel about a young Irish woman
discovering her sexuality.[5] It was a finalist for the Lambda Literary
Award in 1994.[4] This was followed in 1995 by Hood, another
contemporary story, this time about an Irish woman coming to terms with
the death of her girlfriend.[5] Hood won the 1997 American Library
Association's Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Book Award for Literature (now
known as the Stonewall Book Award for Literature).[4][6]
Slammerkin
(2000) is a historical novel set in London and Wales. Inspired by an
18th century newspaper story about a young servant who killed her
employer and was executed, the protagonist is a prostitute who longs for
fine clothes.[4][7] It was a finalist in the 2001 Irish Times Irish
Literature Prize for Fiction and was awarded the 2002 Ferro-Grumley
Award for Lesbian Fiction (despite a lack of lesbian content).[4][8][9]
Her 2007 novel, Landing, portrays a long-distance relationship between a
Canadian curator and an Irish flight attendant.[10] The Sealed Letter
(2008), Donoghue's latest work of historical fiction, is based on the
Codrington Affair, a scandalous divorce case that gripped Britain in
1864. The Sealed Letter was longlisted for the Giller Prize, and was
joint winner of the 2009 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction.

On July 27, 2010, Donoghue's novel Room was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and on September 7, 2010 it made the shortlist.

Bibliography
Novels
Stir Fry (1994)
Hood (1995)
Slammerkin (2000)
Life Mask (2004)
Landing (2007)
The Sealed Letter (2008)
Room (2010)
Short stories
"Dear Lang" (2009) in How Beautiful the Ordinary: Twelve Stories of Identity (ed. Michael Chart)
Short story collections
Kissing the Witch (1997)
The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits (2002)
Touchy Subjects (2006)
Drama (Stage)
I Know My Own Heart (1993) (published 2001)
Ladies and Gentlemen (1996) (published 1998)
Don't Die Wondering (2005)
Kissing The Witch (2000)
Drama (Radio)
Trespasses (1996)
Don't Die Wondering (2000)
Exes (2001)
Humans and Other Animals (2003)
Mix (2003)
Screenplays
Pluck (2001)
Literary History
Passions Between Women: British Lesbian Culture 1668-1801 (1993)
We Are Michael Field (1998)
Inseparable: Desire Between Women in Literature (2010)
Works edited
What Sappho Would Have Said (1997)
The Mammoth Book Of Lesbian Short Stories (1999