Sebastian Barry – Year of election 2009

Sebastian Barry’s first play, Boss Grady’s Boys, produced at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in 1988, won the Stewart Parker Award. His The Steward of Christendom (1995) transferred from the Royal Court Theatre to Broadway, and won the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize, the Ireland/America Literary Prize, the Critics’ Circle Award for Best New Play and the Writers’ Guild Award (Best Fringe Play).  He wrote poetry, short stories and a children’s book before the publication of his first formal novel, The Wanderings of Eneas McNulty, in 1998; Annie Dunn followed in 2002 and A Long Long Way in 2005. His most recent, The Secret Scripture, was the winner of the 2009 Costa Book Award.

Barry draws on recent Irish history, and particularly his own family history, for his work. He likes the words of Patrick Kavanagh, “I dabbled in poetry and found it was my life.” “This is so true, especially after 31 years,” he says. “My grandfather wanted me to follow him into the British army (he was a major in the Royal Engineers). I often think of my alternative, lost career there. My other grandfather wanted me to be a painter like him and I was apprenticed to him as a boy. I wanted to be Bob Dylan. But I am sure it all goes to good purpose one way or another.”