Lib is shocked that her warning to Anna that she might die does not seem to disturb her. However, they claim to have done everything possible for Anna. Lib comes to believe that the watch, set up by the local doctor, priest, and other local authorities, has only succeeded in starving Anna, and tries to persuade them to move to save her. However, since Lib's arrival, Anna has been refusing even this sustenance. She is shocked when Byrne, who has some experience with starvation because of his coverage of the Irish famine, informs Lib that Anna is dying.įrom their discussions, Lib comes to realize that the manna Anna spoke of was chewed-up food, fed to her through her mouth by her mother in the evening and the morning under the guise of a kiss. Lib befriends a journalist, William Byrne, who is writing a story on Anna and, no longer trusting her own judgement, introduces Byrne to Anna. Lib is unable to determine how Anna has been surviving, and slowly comes to believe she is not intentionally seeking fame or fortune.

Lib immediately assumes the child is a trickster, but is shocked by her deep faith and her insistence that she is existing on manna from Heaven. Lib comes to realize that she and a nun have been hired to watch over an 11-year-old child, Anna O'Donnell, who stopped eating on her 11th birthday four months ago. In the 1850s, Lib Wright, an English nurse trained by Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War, accepts a mysterious job in Ireland. It was also adapted into a 2022 film of the same name directed by Sebastián Lelio. The novel received positive reviews upon release and was nominated for the 2016 Giller Prize.

Set in post-famine Ireland, the novel follows English nurse Elizabeth Wright as she cares for a supposed miraculous girl, who has survived without sustenance for four months. The Wonder is a 2016 novel by Irish-Canadian novelist Emma Donoghue.

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