The Wonder

Abstract

The Wonder takes place seven years after the end of the Irish Great Famine (1845-1849) and it tells the story of an English nurse trained by Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), named Elizabeth (Lib) Wright, who is hired by an Irish village committee to watch for a fortnight, day and night, Anna O’Donnell, an eleven year old girl who claims not to have eaten since her eleventh birthday, which took place four months before the beginning of the story. Accompanied by a silent nun called Sister Michael, Lib must ascertain if Anna is telling the truth or if someone is secretly feeding her. While Lib initially believes that Anna and her family are lying, somehow motivated by the deeply catholic environment in which they live and by the prospect of canonizing Anna, the nurse quickly discovers that the girl is dying of starvation and that her refusal to eat is a consequence of a profoundly traumatizing event. The novel was inspired by the several cases of “fasting girls” that were reported around the world between the sixteenth and the twentieth centuries and which often attracted the interest of doctors, scientists and clergymen.