26 followers
52 books added

Kevin Barry

Ireland (b.1969)

Kevin Barry was born in Limerick and now lives in Dublin. He writes sketches and columns for the Sunday Herald in Glasgow and the Irish Examiner in Cork. He has written about travel and literature for The Guardian, The Irish Times, The Sydney Morning Herald and many other publications. He was awarded the 2007 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature for this collection.

Awards: Dublin (2013), Authors' Club (2012), Rooney (2007) see all

Genres: Literary Fiction, Historical, Science Fiction

Novels

   City of Bohane (2011)
   Beatlebone (2015)
   Night Boat to Tangier (2019)
   The Heart in Winter (2024)

Collections

   There are Little Kingdoms (2007)
   Dark Lies the Island (2012)
   That Old Country Music (2020)

Anthologies edited

Town and Country (2013)

Series contributed to

Electric Literature's Recommended Reading
Wifey Redux (2015)

Books containing stories by Kevin Barry

Collected Stories (2023)
edited by
Ben Rivers

The 32 (2021)
An Anthology of Irish Working-Class Voices
edited by
Paul McVeigh

Head Land (2016)
10 Years of the Edge Hill Short Story Prize
edited by
Rodge Glass

More books

Awards

	2013 Dublin Literary Award : City of Bohane
	2012 Authors' Club Best First Novel Award : City of Bohane
	2007 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature : There are Little Kingdoms

Award nominations

	2025 Walter Scott Prize for Best Historical Novel (longlist) : The Heart in Winter
	2025 Libby Award for Best Historical Fiction (nominee) : The Heart in Winter
	2019 Booker Prize (longlist) : Night Boat to Tangier
	2015 James Tait Black Memorial Prize (nominee) : Beatlebone
	2015 Goldsmiths Prize (nominee) : Beatlebone
	2011 Costa Book Award for Best First Novel (nominee) : City of Bohane

Kevin Barry recommends

Walk Softly on This Heart of Mine (2025)
Callie Collins
"The old, weird Austin is not dead! It's alive and kicking on the pages of Callie Collins's beautiful novel, a soulful, funny and note-perfect ode to that renegade city and to the righteous music that made it what it is. Fans of Denis Johnson and Willy Vlautin will DEVOUR."

Twist (2025)
Colum McCann
"McCann may follow Coppola upriver and Conrad to the heart of darkness, but the concerns of his novel are contemporary and urgent and utterly compelling. This is an ambitious novel, note-perfect, wild but controlled, with its deft apparatus mapping our most mysterious twenty-first-century malaise - the great loneliness of the connected world."

The Wardrobe Department (2025)
Elaine Garvey
"Elaine Garvey is a tremendous new talent in Irish writing - I'm certain the reader will recognise inside half a page that she's the real thing."

Wild Houses (2024)
Colin Barrett
"Vivid, controlled, very funny, and very moving - Barrett has the kind of pure writing chops that are vanishingly rare."

Kala (2023)
Colin Walsh
"Now here's a truly ambitious debut novel that purrs with narrative confidence - hugely engaging and thoroughly addictive."

Shy (2023)
Max Porter
"A troubled boy's psyche is presented in a shattered mosaic that contains within it the hope of new forms and new beginnings - this is a beautiful and haunting book, and it captures with a great artistry the resonance and rhythms of its era."

Nothing Special (2023)
Nicole Flattery
"Audacious, original and fully achieved - this is a remarkable novel."

The Rules of Revelation (2021)
Lisa McInerney
"It's got all the crackle and verve and mad vivid life we've come to expect but it's so open-hearted and warm, too, and utterly engrossing - it's her best work to date, which is really saying something."

My Phantoms (2021)
Gwendoline Riley
"What a phenomenal ear she has, and how remorselessly funny she is My Phantoms is unmissably good."

Bright Burning Things (2021)
Lisa Harding
"Lisa Harding is a vivid and original stylist and a gifted storyteller. This is a fabulous novel."

The Wild Laughter (2020)
Caoilinn Hughes
"Caoilinn Hughes is a writer of immense ability and vitality – she's a true natural, with the talent to match her ambition."

Modern Times (2020)
Cathy Sweeney
"Cathy Sweeney's stories have already attracted a band of fanatical devotees, and this first collection is as marvellous as we could have hoped for. A unique imagination, a brilliant debut."

Muscle (2019)
Alan Trotter
"What a rare and accomplished debut this is - it teases out classic Noir riffs and set-ups but in a language sinuous enough, and with invention ripe enough, to make them feel new."

Darker with the Lights on (2017)
David Hayden
"Quietly innovative, subtle of tone, full of feeling—this is a superb debut."

Solar Bones (2016)
Mike McCormack
"McCormack is one of our bravest and most innovative writers-he shoots for the stars with this one and does not fall short."

More recommendations

Visitors also looked at these authors

About Fantastic Fiction Information for Authors