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Emma Donoghue is an Irish-Canadian author, screenwriter, and playwright. She was born in Dublin, Ireland but now lives alongside her family in Canada. She is the author of many other books including The Pull of the Stars, Akin, and many historical novels.

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The book is told from the perspective of a five-year-old boy, Jack, who is being held captive in a small room along with his mother. The boy has never been outside of the room. When he gets older, he starts to ask questions that Ma had trouble answering. The book is told entirely is Jack's voice.

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The main characters in this book are Ma, who is Jack's mother, and Jack. Old Nick is another main character. Old Nick is the name Ma gave to the man that kidnapped her, and is never really introduced, because Jack never actually see's Old Nick. Other smaller characters are Grandma, Steppa, Paul, and Bronwyn.

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Creepy movie Room is currently streaming on Netflix in the UK and has made it into the platform's most-watched lists, with plenty of people taking the chance to view it after lockdown.

The film, starring Brie Larson, based on the book of the same name by author Emma Donoghue, tells the story of a woman who was kidnapped, raped and made to have a child with her abuser.

The mother and son in the 2015 film were locked up and forced to live in a room, which is the only world the little boy had ever known.

It is thought to have been inspired by the chilling true case of Josef Fritzl, who abused his own daughter.

Here is what happened in the Josef Fritzl case and how it inspired Room.

What was the Fritzl case?

In a case that hit headlines in 2008, it was uncovered that Josef Fritzl had kept his daughter Elisabeth locked up in a cellar for 24 years in Austria.

He had raped her repeatedly and fathered seven children with her, leaving her to give birth without medical intervention or support, according to BBC reports.

One of her babies had died. Rather than seeking medical help, her father had allowed the baby to perish and reportedly disposed of its body in an incinerator.

Three of the children were locked up with his daughter in the cellar dungeon, which was soundproofed and had electric locks installed which would only open with a code. The chambers of windowless rooms meant they never saw daylight.

The other three children were raised by Fritzl and his wife, who said she "had no idea" about her husband's crimes.

He covered up his offences by pretending that his daughter had run away to join a cult.

As for the three children he had with his daughter which he raised in the house upstairs with his wife, he claimed they had turned up on his doorstep as babies.

Fritzl provided his daughter and her children with food but sometimes punished them by withholding it and was careful to make sure no one found out they were there.

How did it all come to light?

The story finally came out when the oldest daughter of Elisabeth Fritzl became seriously ill with a kidney condition.

She convinced her father to let the girl go to hospital, where staff realised something was amiss, and she was put into a coma, severely ill.

Police were alerted and appeals were put out for the mother to come forward, which Elisabeth saw on TV.

She pleaded with her father to take her to the hospital, and eventually he did.

Police may have expected to be dealing with a case of child cruelty against Elisabeth's daughter.

When Elisabeth told the police her story, she began it by saying: "No-one will believe me," according to The Mirror. Elisabeth and her children were finally free from imprisonment in the cellar.

A trial eventually ensued and Josef Fritzl, who was 73 when the story came out, was eventually sentenced to life for his crimes.

How did the case inspire Room?

Emma Donoghue, the author of the book of the which the film is based on, spoke of how the Fritzl case inspired the story, in an interview on The Late Late Show broadcast on RTE.

She said: "The one-line notion of childhood in the locked room, I got that from the Fritzl case."

The main reason the case struck a chord with her, she explained, is that she had young children of her own and she imagined what it would be like "trying to be a good mother in a locked room".

Whatever the circumstances, she said the parent-child relationship can feel "claustrophobic" at times. This idea is reflected by the little boy in the book and film growing up in the locked room, as is the heroic nature of the mum trying to raise him as best she can, according to the writer.

She later told The Guardian that the idea was "triggered" by the Frtizl case, rather than based on it.

"The newspaper reports of Felix Fritzl [Elisabeth's son], aged five, emerging into a world he didn't know about, put the idea into my head," Donoghue told The Guardian. "That notion of the wide-eyed child emerging into the world like a Martian coming to Earth - it seized me."

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Is Room a true story? How the Josef Fritzl case inspired the harrowing movie with Brie Larson

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Creepy movie Room is currently streaming on Netflix in the UK and has made it into the platform's most-watched lists, with plenty of people taking the chance to view it after lockdown. The film, starring Brie Larson, based on the book of the same name by author Emma Donoghue, tells the story of a woman who was kidnapped, raped and made to have a child with her abuser.