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John Banville

Ireland (b.1945)

aka Benjamin Black

John Banville was born in Ireland, in 1945. His first book, Long Lankin, was published in 1970. He lives in Dublin where he is at work on his latest novel.

Awards: Booker (2005), James Tait Black (1976) see all

Genres: Literary Fiction, Historical Mystery, Historical

New and upcoming books

September 2025

Venetian Vespers

Series

Revolutions Trilogy
   1. Doctor Copernicus (1976)
   2. Kepler (1981)
   3. The Newton Letter (1982)

Frames
   1. The Book of Evidence (1989)
   2. Ghosts (1993)
   3. Athena (1995)
   Frames Trilogy (2001)

Cleave Trilogy
1. Eclipse (2000)
2. Shroud (2002)

Strafford and Quirke Mystery
   1. Snow (2020)
   2. April in Spain (2021)
   3. The Lock-Up (2023)
   4. The Drowned (2024)

Novels

   Nightspawn (1971)
   Birchwood (1973)
   Mefisto (1986)
   The Broken Jug (1994)
   The Untouchable (1997)
   The Sea (2005)
   The Infinities (2009)
   Ancient Light (2012)
   The Blue Guitar (2015)
   Mrs Osmond (2017)
   The Singularities (2022)
   Venetian Vespers (2025)

Collections

   Long Lankin (1970)
   The Supreme Fictions of John Banville (1999)
   The Revolutions Trilogy (2000)
   Imagined Lives (2011) (with others)
   The Book of Evidence / The Sea (2015)

Novellas and Short Stories

God's Gift (2000)

Plays show

Non fiction show

Books containing stories by John Banville

The Picador Book of 40 (2012)
40 Writers Inspired By a Number
edited by
Charlotte Greig

The Granta Book of the Irish Short Story (2010)
edited by
Anne Enright

The Penguin Book of Irish Fiction (1999)
edited by
Colm Tóibín

Awards

	2005 Booker Prize : The Sea
	1976 James Tait Black Memorial Prize : Doctor Copernicus

Award nominations

	2024 CWA Historical Dagger (longlist) : The Lock-Up
	2022 CWA Historical Dagger (shortlist) : April in Spain
	2021 CWA Historical Dagger (shortlist) : Snow
	2002 Booker Prize (longlist) : Shroud
	1997 Whitbread Prize for Best Novel (nominee) : The Untouchable
	1996 Dublin Literary Award (nominee) : Ghosts
	1989 Booker Prize (shortlist) : The Book of Evidence

John Banville recommends

For Emma (2025)
Ewan Morrison
"For Emma is as disturbing as it is convincing, a tale of love and guilt and grief, and an apt tract for our chaotic times."

Amnesiac (2024)
Neil Jordan
"One of the most inventive artists of our day."

Where They Lie (2024)
Claire Coughlan
"A thrillingly dark and atmospheric tale, richly evocative of its time, especially for those of us old enough to remember 1968."

The Helsinki Affair (2023)
Anna Pitoniak
"If you are one of those people--we are not a few--who think they don't write thrillers like they used to, then The Helsinki Affair is for you. An intricate, vigorously told and splendidly entertaining tale."

The Pages (2021)
Hugo Hamilton
"An ingenious conceit."

Life Sentences (2021)
Billy O'Callaghan
"A superb and moving novel . . . O'Callaghan is one of our finest writers, in the tradition of John McGahern and Brian Friel, and this is his best work yet."

Grimoire (2020)
Robin Robertson
"Robin Robertson is one of the finest contemporary poets."

The Bright Lands (2020)
John Fram
"John Fram's novel marks the debut of an already accomplished novelist. The Bright Lands is a dark tale luminously, and compellingly, told."

When All Is Said (2019)
Anne Griffin
"When All Is Said catches a world in a moment. Maurice Hannigan is a wonderful invention, whose bitter-sweet meditations will stay long in the reader's mind. Anne Griffin has fashioned a rare jewel."

Mary B (2018)
Katherine J Chen
"In giving Mary Bennet a resonant voice of her own, Chen has fashioned a luminous and enlightening novel that will entrance even, or especially, those who have not read Jane Austen’s masterpiece."

The Rockingham Shoot and Other Dramatic Writings (2018)
John McGahern
"His is am immensely subtle and sophisticated art."

Orchid & the Wasp (2018)
Caoilinn Hughes
"Orchid & the Wasp is an ambitious, richly inventive and highly entertaining account of the way we live now. Caoilinn Hughes writes with authority and insight, and her novel is as up-to-date as tomorrow's financial-page headlines."

Last Stories (2018)
William Trevor
"He is one of the great short-story writers, at his best the equal of Chekhov."

The Secret Books (2017)
Marcel Theroux
"The Secret Books, ingenious, stylish, at once sardonic and accommodating, is a meditation on our abiding need for stories, which itself has a gloriously entertaining story to tell."

Low Heights (2017)
Pascal Garnier
"The true heir to Simenon."

The Zoo (2017)
Christopher Wilson
"Disgracefully entertaining."

The Weight of Him (2017)
Ethel Rohan
"Ethel Rohan shows herself to be one of those rare, courageous writers who dare to take on the 'ordinary' and show just how extraordinary it really is. The Weight of Him is a brave and moving book."

The Temporary Gentleman (2014)
(McNulty Family, book 3)
Sebastian Barry
"FASCINATING AND MOVING, [IT] SHOWS SEBASTIAN BARRY TO BE ONE OF OUR FINEST NOVELISTS-DARING, ACCOMODATING AND HUMANE."

The Ghost of the Mary Celeste (2014)
Valerie Martin
"Wonderfully ingenious, compelling, convincing and exciting."

The Glass Ocean (2013)
Lori Baker
"A captivating story-teller... has the flash and fire of molten glass."

The Effect of Her (2013)
Gerard Stembridge
"Extraordinarily vivid, knowing and satisfyingly irreverent."

The Twenty-Year Death (2012)
Ariel S Winter
"The Twenty-Year Death is a bravura debut, ingenious and assured, and a fitting tribute to the trio of illustrious ghosts who are looking – with indulgence, surely – over Ariel Winter’s shoulder."

Major / Minor (2011)
Alba Arikha
"A fiercely honest and compelling account of what it is to grow up in an artistic household."

Absolute Zero Cool (2011)
Declan Burke
"A genuinely original take on noir, inventive and funny, a cross between Flann O'Brien and Raymond Chandler."

What Alice Knew (2010)
Paula Marantz Cohen
"A marvelously rich and intelligent read..."

The Truth About Love (2009)
Josephine Hart
"An ambitious and poetic weaving of a long-ago family tragedy into the tragic history, and histories, of our time. Josephine Hart has come home in triumph."

The Informers (2008)
Juan Gabriel Vásquez
"A fine and frightening study of how the past preys upon the present, and an absorbing revelation of a little-known wing of the theatre of the Nazi war."

Inside (2006)
Kenneth J Harvey
"A tough, unrelenting novel, thrilling and darkly eloquent and, in the end, a celebration of what life offers in even the harshest of circumstances."

Corfu (2001)
Robert Dessaix
"Sad, funny and moving...A wonderful book."

Death and Nightingales (1992)
Eugene McCabe
"It should put Eugene McCabe in the first rank of contemporary Irish novelists."

A Landing On the Sun (1991)
Michael Frayn
"His work is as darkly ambiguous as that of Chekhov... and leaves one feeling an equal measure of laughter and sorrow."

Blood Meridian (1985)
Cormac McCarthy
"Unlike anything I have read in recent years, an extraordinary, breathtaking achievement."

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