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Damian Barr



Damian Barr is a journalist, writer and host of his own Literary Salon. You can follow him on twitter @damian_barr and insta @mrdamianbarr. His Salon is at www.theliterarysalon.co.uk

His first novel is called 'You Will Be Safe Here'. It will be out in April 2019.

'Maggie & Me' is his story of surviving small-town Scotland in the Thatcher years. It won Sunday Times Memoir of the Year: "Full to the brim with poignancy, humour, brutality and energetic and sometimes shimmering prose, the book confounds one's assumptions about those years and drenches the whole era in an emotionally charged comic grandeur. It is hugely affecting." BBC Radio 4 made it a Book of the Week. Following Jeanette Winterson in 2012, Stonewall named Damian Barr Writer of the Year 2013.

Damian hosts his own Literary Salon at the Savoy. Guests include: Jojo Moyes, Bret Easton Ellis, John Waters, Polly Samson, James Frey, David Nicholls, Colm Toibin,Taiye Selasi, Alex Preston, David Mitchell and Naomi Alderman. He hosts events with the British Council, Hay, the BBC National Short Story Award and the Man Booker. He has taught a Memoir Masterclass for the Guardian-UEA.

Commended as Columnist of the Year, he has been a journalist for over a decade writing mostly for The Times but also the Independent, Telegraph, Financial Times, Guardian, Evening Standard and Granta. He is currently Literary Editor of Soho House magazine and a columnist for the Big Issue and High Life. His first book, based on his Times column, was published by Hodder in 2005. 'Get It Together: A Guide to Surviving Your Quarterlife Crisis' was a bestseller.

Damian has also co-written two plays for Radio 4 and appeared on PM, Midweek, Broadcasting House and Today as well as The Verb and as a presenter on Front Row. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

He lives in Brighton with his partner and their intensely demanding chickens.
 


Genres: Literary Fiction
 
Novels
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Award nominations
2020 HWA Debut Crown Award (longlist) : You Will Be Safe Here


Damian Barr recommends
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Murder Before Evensong (2022)
(Canon Clement Mystery, book 1)
The Reverend Richard Coles
"Champton joins St Mary Mead and Midsomer in the great atlas of fictional English villages where the crimes are as dastardly as the residents delightful. Canon Daniel Clement must solve mysteries temporal and theological while surviving his parishioners tender ministries. Delightful! And only Richard Coles could pull this off so joyfully and with such style. Biscuit-thieving Cosmo, too, will soon have his own fan club."
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The Giver of Stars (2019)
Jojo Moyes
"Purest joy - even as it cheerfully breaks your heart. A go-get-em adventure about E Roosevelt's horseback librarians, it celebrates female friendship and the power of books."
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The House by the Loch (2019)
Kirsty Wark
"Wark's second novel brings to life Galloway - one of the most beautiful and least well-known parts of Scotland, even to many Scots. This sparsely populated but spare and beautiful landscape anchors three generations of one family struggling to come to terms with a dark secret. As with her debut, The House by the Loch draws on real historical incident and some of her own personal history while also being a deeply satisfying work of pure imagination, however real Jean and Walter and their families feel. A multi-generational story that is at once sweeping and intimate."

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