John Banville

John Banville (born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945) is an Irish novelist whose work won the Booker Prize in 2005. Writing in English, he moves between literary fiction and crime writing, and he is one of the best-known names in contemporary Anglophone literature.

Banville knew early on that he wanted to be a writer. He was educated at Christian Brothers schools and at St Peter's College in Wexford, but he chose not to go to university. Instead he worked for the airline Aer Lingus, which let him travel at reduced fares. He later turned to journalism at The Irish Press and then The Irish Times, where he was literary editor from 1988 to 1999. His first book, the story collection Long Lankin, appeared in 1970, and a long run of novels followed.

His prose is precise and witty, with a dark humour that shows the influence of Nabokov. He has organised much of his fiction into trilogies: the Revolutions Trilogy, about scientists such as Copernicus and Kepler; the Frames Trilogy, which looks at art and an unreliable narrator; and the Cleave trilogy. Under the name Benjamin Black he writes crime novels, several featuring the Dublin pathologist Quirke and set in the 1950s. Among his best-known books are The Book of Evidence, a Booker finalist in 1989, and The Sea, which won the prize in 2005.

The Booker brought him wider international recognition, and further honours followed, including the Franz Kafka Prize in 2011 and the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature in 2014. His work also engages openly with Henry James, most visibly in Mrs Osmond, a sequel to The Portrait of a Lady.