John Banville

Author profile

born

December 08, 1945 in Wexford, Ireland

gender

male

genre

Literature & Fiction, Mystery & Thrillers

About this author

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Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland. His father worked in a garage and died when Banville was in his early thirties; his mother was a housewife. He is the youngest of three siblings; his older brother Vincent is also a novelist and has written under the name Vincent Lawrence as well as his own. His sister Vonnie Banville-Evans has written both a children's novel and a reminiscence of growing up in Wexford.

Educated at a Christian Brothers' school and at St Peter's College in Wexford. Despite having intended to be a painter and an architect he did not attend university. Banville has described this as "A great mistake. I should have gone. I regret not taking that four years of getting drunk and falling in love. But I wanted to get away from...more Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland. His father worked in a garage and died when Banville was in his early thirties; his mother was a housewife. He is the youngest of three siblings; his older brother Vincent is also a novelist and has written under the name Vincent Lawrence as well as his own. His sister Vonnie Banville-Evans has written both a children's novel and a reminiscence of growing up in Wexford.

Educated at a Christian Brothers' school and at St Peter's College in Wexford. Despite having intended to be a painter and an architect he did not attend university. Banville has described this as "A great mistake. I should have gone. I regret not taking that four years of getting drunk and falling in love. But I wanted to get away from my family. I wanted to be free." After school he worked as a clerk at Aer Lingus which allowed him to travel at deeply-discounted rates. He took advantage of this to travel in Greece and Italy. He lived in the United States during 1968 and 1969. On his return to Ireland he became a sub-editor at the Irish Press, rising eventually to the position of chief sub-editor. His first book, Long Lankin, was published in 1970.

After the Irish Press collapsed in 1995, he became a sub-editor at the Irish Times. He was appointed literary editor in 1998. The Irish Times, too, suffered severe financial problems, and Banville was offered the choice of taking a redundancy package or working as a features department sub-editor. He left. Banville has been a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books since 1990. In 1984, he was elected to Aosdána, but resigned in 2001, so that some other artist might be allowed to receive the cnuas.

Banville also writes under the pen name Benjamin Black. His first novel under this pen name was Christine Falls, which was followed by The Silver Swan in 2007. Banville has two adult sons with his wife, the American textile artist Janet Dunham. They met during his visit to San Francisco in 1968 where she was a student at the University of California, Berkeley. Dunham described him during the writing process as being like "a murderer who's just come back from a particularly bloody killing". Banville has two daughters from his relationship with Patricia Quinn, former head of the Arts Council of Ireland.

Banville has a strong interest in vivisection and animal rights, and is often featured in Irish media speaking out against vivisection in Irish university research.(less)

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Books by John Banville

Average rating: 3.46 · 15,247 ratings · 2,622 reviews · 51 distinct works

	The Sea 3.35 avg rating — 5,881 ratings — published 2005 — 34 editions	My rating:
	The Book of Evidence 3.80 avg rating — 961 ratings — published 1989 — 15 editions	My rating:
	The Untouchable 3.96 avg rating — 693 ratings — published 1997 — 20 editions	My rating:
	The Infinities 3.22 avg rating — 795 ratings — published 2009 — 22 editions	My rating:
	Shroud 3.51 avg rating — 311 ratings — published 2002 — 17 editions	My rating:
	Ghosts 3.69 avg rating — 228 ratings — published 2011 — 11 editions	My rating:
	Doctor Copernicus 3.65 avg rating — 194 ratings — published 1992 — 14 editions	My rating:
	Athena 3.74 avg rating — 190 ratings — published 2012 — 11 editions	My rating:
	Eclipse: A Novel 3.63 avg rating — 198 ratings — 15 editions	My rating:
	Kepler: A novel 3.73 avg rating — 162 ratings — published 1993 — 11 editions	My rating:

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March 2010, John Banville
"This is surely the greatest single volume of poetry ever published. Yeats the man was a ninny, but Yeats the poet was truly great." ...More

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Quotes by John Banville

“The past beats inside me like a second heart.”
― John Banville, The Sea

10 people liked it

“Life, authentic life, is supposed to be all struggle, unflagging action and affirmation, the will butting its blunt head against the world's wall, suchlike, but when I look back I see that the greater part of my energies was always given over to the simple search for shelter, for comfort, for, yes, I admit it, for cosiness. This is a surprising, not to say shocking, realisation. Before, I saw myself as something of a buccaneer, facing all-comers with a cutlass in my teeth, but now I am compelled to acknowledge that this was a delusion. To be concealed, protected, guarded, that is all I have ever truly ever wanted, to burrow down into a place of womby warmth and cower there, hidden from the sky's indifferent gaze and the air's harsh damagings. That is why the past is just such a retreat for me, I go there eagerly, rubbing my hands and shaking off the cold present and the colder future. And yet, what existence, really, does it have, the past? After all, it is only what the present was, once, the present that is gone, no more than that. And yet.”
― John Banville, The Sea

10 people liked it

“Happiness was different in childhood. It was so much then a matter simply of accumulation, of taking things - new experiences, new emotions - and applying them like so many polished tiles to what would someday be the marvellously finished pavilion of the self.”
― John Banville, The Sea

6 people liked it

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Polls

what to read in january

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

3 votes 37.5%

The Long Song by Andrea Levy

2 votes 25.0%

The Night Watch by Sarah Waters

2 votes 25.0%

The Sea by John Banville

1 vote 12.5%

Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry

0 votes 0.0%

The Glass Room by Simon Mawer

0 votes 0.0%

8 total votes

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John Banville

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John Banville

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combine editionsBooks by John Banville

Upcoming Events

Interviews

Quotes by John Banville

Polls

Topics Mentioning This Author

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Videos

combine editions
Books by John Banville