“You can sense the volumes of Joyce, Beckett and Nabokov on Banville”
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John Banville
William John Banville is an Irish novelist, adapter of dramas, and screenwriter. A former member of Aosdána, he voluntarily relinquished the financial stipend in 2001 to another, more impoverished, writer.
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culture · Irish author (born 1945) · screenwriter · novelist · writer · playwright · literary critic · journalist · author · also John Banville, Banville
Born 8 December 1945 · Q313077
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2026· 4 entries
“wrestling with Kafka since I was an adolescent”
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“Dostoyevsky is such a bad writer it is hard to take him seriously... Ditto Camus”
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“s style; however, he went on,”
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2025· 1 entry
The Guardian: Venetian Vespers by John Banville review – a haunting honeymoon
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2024· 2 entries
The Guardian: ‘I’m writing a memoir. It’s a pack of lies’: John Banville on a lifetime in books, bereavement, and the Irish love of words
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The Guardian: The Drowned by John Banville review – death and drizzle in 50s Ireland
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2022· 3 entries
The Guardian: The Singularities by John Banville review – a playful fusion of theoretical physics and intelligent storytelling
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The Guardian: The Singularities by John Banville review – inside a murderer’s underworld
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The Guardian: John Banville: ‘There’s been a creeping retreat into infantilism’
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2020· 1 entry
The Guardian: The Secret Guests by BW Black review – John Banville’s royal yarn
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2015· 1 entry
To provide funds for the Irish Hospice Foundation's efforts to give care to terminally ill patients within their own homes
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2014· 3 entries
Awarded Princess of Asturias Literary Prize (2014).
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To mark the 150th anniversary of the National Gallery of Ireland
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“s 1602 painting The Taking of Christ for the book Lines of Vision, released in 2014 to mark the 150th anniversary of the National Gallery of Ireland. He contributed to Sons+Fathers, a book published in 2015 to provide funds for the Irish Hospice Foundation”
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2013· 1 entry
Awarded Austrian State Prize for European Literature (2013).
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2012· 2 entries
Banville related his thoughts on hurt and responsibility: "To hurt other people is the worst thing you can do
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— "I didn't feel badly about it because I was writing the kinds of books I wanted to write
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2011· 2 entries
Awarded Franz Kafka Prize (2011).
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Banville was awarded the Franz Kafka Prize
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2007· 2 entries
Awarded Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (2007).
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And recognised with a selection of European accolades, among which were the 2011 Franz Kafka Prize from Czechia, the 2013 Austrian State Prize for European Literature and the 2014 Prince of Asturias Award for Literature
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2006· 1 entry
Banville embarked on a crime fiction spree under the pen name of Benjamin Black
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2005· 2 entries
Awarded Booker Prize for The Sea (2005).
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And with it came wider international recognition for Banville among the reading public
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2003· 1 entry
Awarded International Nonino Prize (2003).
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1990· 1 entry
Banville had two daughters with Quinn, born around 1990 and 1997.
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1981· 2 entries
“runner-up to the shortlist of contenders”
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To The Guardian suggesting that the Booker Prize, for which he was "runner-up to the shortlist of contenders", be given to him so that he could use the money to buy every copy of the longlisted books in Ireland and donat
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1976· 1 entry
Awarded James Tait Black Memorial Prize (1976).
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1969· 2 entries
And — subsequently — worked as a sub-editor at The Irish Times
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Banville married the American textile artist Janet Dunham, whom he met in San Francisco the previous year while she was a student at the University of California, Berkeley
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1945· 1 entry
Born 1945-12-08.
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1940· 1 entry
To escape the London Blitz and a possible German invasion of Britain
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