Sebastian Barry

Irish novelist, playwright and poet, born in Dublin in 1955. Barry served as the third Laureate for Irish Fiction (2018–2021) and was made a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2024. He is the only novelist to have twice won the Costa Book of the Year, for The Secret Scripture (2008) and Days Without End (2016), and has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize with A Long Long Way (2005) and The Secret Scripture. His fiction ranges across generations of the McNulty and Dunne families and includes A Long Long Way, The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty, The Temporary Gentleman, A Thousand Moons and Old God's Time (2023), the latter longlisted for the Booker Prize.