I do not think Sally Rooney’s fiction is uniquely political; thinking this would suggest that politics and fiction are separable from each other.
Rooney’s razor-sharp depiction of politics in relationships is prevalent in each of her novels respectively; Marianne and Connell’s strained dynamic is entrenched in their class divide, Alice and Eileen debate capitalism in their extensive email chains, Peter’s profession raises questions about personal ethics and all characters in Conversations with Friends engage in radical politics. By studying personal relationships in such a microscopic and thus revealing manner, Rooney explores wider social and political constructs which guide, and often determine these dynamics.
Literature is as special and impactful as it is, especially in this day and age, because it inhabits the paradox between being steeped in the politics of the author and cultural contexts, yet at the same time, the author’s politics should not be a reader’s only takeaway from a piece of their fictional work. Oftentimes, especially with literary fiction, the genre within which Rooney’s work falls, the author represents the world as they see it, which inevitably draws us into a particular socio-political context.
By setting her fiction in the world in which we live, depicting class imbalance, housing crises and discrimination, politics is an invariable side-effect.
Rooney agrees, telling The Guardian in 2018 in conversation about Normal People: “It would have been really difficult for me to write about young people leaving home in the west of Ireland, moving to college, and not confront the economic disparities that were emerging at that time, like the stripping back of protections for people from working-class backgrounds who were going to college.”
In a 2020 article, socialist magazine Tribune praises Sally Rooney for her depiction of class divides in Normal People, yet still understands that Rooney’s politics are a “strand of red thread” running through her writing, rather than making up the novel’s overall composition.
Rooney perceives her fiction writing as existing in a different space to her political writing, with the only thread drawing them together being that of being born from the same author, which in itself should not draw relevance to the content inside either pieces of work.
Sally Rooney’s fiction has long been discussed through a political lens, whether the author herself agrees with this or not. Normal People was described as having “radical politics” in Jacobin in 2020 and The Independent call her “the most daring political writer of her generation”.
Alongside her fiction, Sally Rooney has produced various opinion pieces on pressing political issues, which offer a clearer pathway into her politics than any piece of fiction could. Famously, her essay ‘An Irish Problem’ was written in response to the 2018 Irish referendum to appeal the Eighth Amendment which banned abortion in Ireland.
As of 14 October 2026, Rooney’s work is no longer sold in the UK, due to her royalties going to Palestine Action, deemed a terrorist organisation under current UK legislation. Faber & Faber ,alongside Rooney, have thus had to terminate the publication of her work in the UK, as to allow this would be a “serious criminal offence,” if Rooney’s royalties were to go to Palestine Action. Similarly, not to pay Rooney for her work being sold would be an “unconscionable situation” for a publisher.
Columnist Sarah Ditum writes scathingly of Rooney, that “by donating her royalties to Palestine Action, she gave her work the political significance she has always desired but never attained.”
This sparks the question; does the distribution of a piece of work determine whether it is political or not? I’m not denying that of course, censorship of literature is a political act in itself, but whether a book is banned or not does not alter its content, or make it more political.
As an author, Rooney involves herself in politics through her financial involvement with Palestine Action, her non-fiction political writings, and speaking out on current issues, not whether she writes Alice or Connell to be politically left-leaning, and I think she’d be inclined to agree.
Illustration by Lucy Wellington @luspaints for The Student
