“When I started writing, I was a great rationalist and believed I was absolutely in control. But the older one gets, the more confused, and for an artist I think that is quite a good thing: you allow in more of your instinctual self; your dreams, fantasies and memories. It's richer, in a way.” – John Banville
Born in Ireland on this
date in 1945, Banville has been labeled "one of the most imaginative literary
novelists writing in the English language today" by The Washington Post. He has won numerous awards, including The Booker Prize for The Sea, the
Guinness Peat Aviation Award for The Book of Evidence, and both the Franz Kafka Prize and the Irish PEN Award for
his life’s body of work.
Sometimes termed “a dark writer,” he said his
stated
ambition is to give his prose "the kind of denseness and thickness
that poetry has.” He also is a noted crime writer (as Benjamin Black), and a journalist -- writing for The New York Review of Books, The Irish Press and
The Irish Times,
where he became literary editor in 1998.
Considered by critics to be "a master stylist," Banville has been described as "perfectly
crafted, beautiful, and dazzling. " David Mehegan of the Boston Globe
calls him "one of the great stylists writing in English today, and Banville himself said he is "trying
to blend poetry and fiction into some new form.”
“I want my art to make people look
at the world in a new way,” he said. “I mean, what's the point of the art of
writing if it doesn't take you into the mysterious?”
No comments:
Post a Comment