Twenty years after winning the Booker, the author reflects on his outsider victory with The Sea, his enduring admiration for Georges Simenon, and the inevitability of failure in the pursuit of art
Monthly Spotlight: The Sea by John Banville
Monthly Spotlight: The Sea by John Banville
- Published
Twenty years ago, John Banville’s exploration of memory, childhood and loss won the Booker Prize
The Sea was Banville’s 13th novel and triumphed in a year that featured a shortlist packed with literary heavyweights – including Zadie Smith, Kazuo Ishiguro, Julian Barnes, Ali Smith and Sebastian Barry.
In Banville’s novel, an art historian attempts to escape a recent loss while confronting a trauma from a long-lost summer.
The author’s career spans more than 50 years, during which he has written over 20 works of fiction, winning numerous prizes along the way. Regarded as a master of the English language, he has often been compared to the greats, including Proust and Nabokov. Despite this, he maintains he dislikes all of his work, and has been known to call his books ‘a standing embarrassment’.
From a reading guide and extract to an exclusive interview with the author, find out more about our February Monthly Spotlight here.
The Sea
Winner of The Booker Prize 2005
- Published by
- Picador
A man attempts to escape a recent loss while confronting a trauma from a long lost summer, in John Banville’s haunting and evocative novel