Sally Rooney declined offers to turn Beautiful World, Where Are You into a TV series

Best-selling Irish writer Sally Rooney has revealed the reason why she hasn’t accepted any offers to turn her third book, Beautiful World, Where Are You, into a television series.

In a conversation with the New York Times, Rooney said: “I felt like it was just time to take a break from that and let the book be its own thing for a while.”

Rooney co-wrote the TV version of her second book, Normal People, which became a TV sensation and shot Kildare man Paul Mescal into stardom. Her first novel, Conversations With Friends, was also adapted into a TV series, in 2022.

On her previous experiences working in TV, the writer explained: "The experience of working on [Normal People] had been, in so many ways, amazing — the team of people involved in it," she said. "But it did also feel like a really big job.

Normal People

"Then, when the show was broadcast, that felt like a lot in terms of the amount of discourse that it generated and the amount of media attention. I felt like, OK, now I know that my books are where I belong, and that’s all that I want to be doing."

Her new book, Intermezzo, is out this week. The novel tells the story of two brothers, Peter and Ivan, who are grieving their father while simultaneously trying to manage their romantic relationships.