Sebastian Barry
A native of Dublin, Sebastian Barry was born in 1955 and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he edited the highly respected literary magazine Icarus.
He first received wide-spread attention as a playwright, earning broad acclaim for The Steward of Christendom (1995) and generated considerable controversy with his stage satire Hinterland (2002), which includes a barely disguised portrait of the Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Charles Haughey. His other plays include Boss Grady's Boys (1988), Our Lady of Sligo (1998), The Pride of Parnell Street (2007), which opens in New York on September 8th, 2009, and Dallas Sweetman (2008).
His poetry includes The Water-Colourist (1982), Fanny Hawke Goes to the Mainland for Ever (1989) and The Pinkening Boy (2005).
In recent years, he has won an enthusiastic following with a series of historical, familial novels dealing with World War I and its aftermath in: The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty (1998), Annie Dunne (2002), A Long Long Way (2005), and most recently, The Secret Scripture (2008). These last two novels were shortlisted for the prestigious Man Booker Prize. His other awards include the Irish-America Fund Literary Award (1995), The Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize (1995), the London Critics' Circle Award for Best New Play (1995), and The Kerry Group Irish Fiction Prize (2006). In 2007, he was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. This year, for The Secret Scripture, Mr. Barry won the Costa Prize for Fiction and went on to win the Costa Book of the Year from a shortlist of five category winners. Earlier this summer at home in Ireland, the novel achieved a double triumph in May 2009, winning two prizes at the Irish Book Awards: the prestigious Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year and The Tubridy Show Listeners' Choice Award, showing that as well as being outstanding quality literary fiction, The Secret Scripture is also highly popular with the reading public at large.
Mr. Barry lives in Wicklow with his wife Ali, and three children, Merlin, Coral, and Tobias.
Permission of Penguin Books
Further Reading:
Christina Hunt Mahony, ed., Out of History: Essays on the Writings of Sebastian Barry (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press 2006).
The Workshop is sponsored by Frederick Marino (SLL '68) and his Family in honor of his father, Joseph Marino.