Roddy Doyle’s funny and poignant novel about a young boy trying to make sense of the world won the Booker Prize in 1993.
By Roddy Doyle
The Booker Prize 1993
At the time of his win, Roddy Doyle was better known for the screen versions of his books than for the books themselves. He had already won a BAFTA for The Commitments.
Doyle, shortlisted for the prize in 1991 with The Van, won with a novel taking a year in the life of a misunderstood ten-year-old Dublin boy, Patrick ‘Paddy’ Clarke. Like most of his work, the novel is driven by dialogue rather than plot. Doyle’s reputation as a humourist meant that the poignancy and foreboding in the book came as a surprise to readers expecting something more joshing.
Although all three books in his Barrytown Trilogy have been filmed, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha remains solely on the page.
Winner The Booker Prize 1993
- By
- Roddy Doyle
- Published by
- Secker & Warburg
Roddy Doyle’s funny and poignant novel about a young boy trying to make sense of the world won the Booker Prize in 1993.
The Shortlist
Tibor Fischer's first novel is both a spirited indictment of totalitarianism and a hugely enjoyable coming-of-age journey.
Michael Ignatieff’s powerful novel explores the bonds of memory, their configuration in identity, and their relationship to love, loyalty and death.
After 16 years spent living with aborigines, a young man rejoins European society, in David Malouf’s intense vision of humankind’s eternal divisions.
By David Malouf
Caryl Phillips’ intense historical fiction addresses slavery’s shattering of the lives of Black people through the story of one father’s lost family.
Carol Shields presents a fictionalised autobiography chronicling the 20th century life of a seemingly ordinary woman born in Canada in 1905.
