Sebastian Barry win Costa Novel Award!
We are thrilled that Sebastian Barry has won the Costa Novel Award for his book Days Without End (UK: Faber, US: Viking). In awarding the prize, judges's called the novel “[a] miracle of a book – both epic and intimate – that manages to create spaces for love and safety in the noise and chaos of history.”
After signing up for the US army in the 1850s, aged barely seventeen, Thomas McNulty and his brother-in-arms, John Cole, go on to fight in the Indian wars and, ultimately, the Civil War. Having fled terrible hardships themselves, they find these days to be vivid and filled with wonder, despite the horrors they both witness and are complicit in. Their lives are further enriched and endangered when a young Indian girl crosses their path, and the possibility of lasting happiness emerges, if only they can survive.
Sebastian Barry was born in Dublin in 1955. His plays include The Steward of Christendom (1995), Our Lady of Sligo (1998) and The Pride of Parnell Street (2007). His novels include A Long Long Way (2005), The Secret Scripture (2008), winner of the Costa Book of the Year, The Temporary Gentleman (2014) and Days Without End (2016). He has won, among other awards, the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Prize, the Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year, the Independent Booksellers Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. A Long Long Way and the top ten bestseller The Secret Scripture were shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. He lives in County Wicklow.
Sebastian is represented by Natasha Fairweather
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