Internationally acclaimed Irish novelist Sally Rooney has announced that she is being forced to withdraw her books from sale in the United Kingdom. This is due to her support for the direct action protest group Palestine Action, which the British government proscribed as a terrorist organisation in June 2025.
Rooney is one of the most visible and exciting literary novelists of the past decade. Her novels have largely focused on nuanced, psychologically acute portrayals of young adult relationships. She uses these often fraught and ambiguous romantic entanglements as a lens for exploring the complexities and cultural anxieties of life in the 21st century.
Her titles typically sell more than 500,000 copies in the UK alone. The BBC adaptation of Normal People, her second novel, has attracted 62.7 million views.
Rooney is based in Ireland, where there is no prohibition on Palestine Action. However, her intention to provide financial assistance for the organisation, in the form of donated royalties, may have legal consequences in the UK. Section 15 of the 2000 Terrorism Act makes it an offence if one “provides money or other property, and knows or has reasonable cause to suspect that it will or may be used for the purposes of terrorism”. Under the Act, this is punishable by a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.
This led Rooney to cancel a trip to...