Described in the
London Review of Booksas “one of the most important writers now at work in English”, John Banville is author of 12 works of fiction, a collection of short stories and three plays. Like few other novelists active in this period – A.S. Byatt and Peter Ackroyd, for example – Banville writes fiction that neither succumbs to a kind of extreme postmodern experimentalism nor attempts a nostalgic reconstruction of the unattainable past. Banville’s management of historical events and subjects sets him apart from more politically involved writers, conveyed, as it is, in a language that plays with and subtly subverts fixed categories of knowledge (fact/fiction; real/unreal).
Naturally, his approach to Irish national literature is ambivalent; he feels part of the culture,
2540 words
Citation: Palazzolo, Pietra. "John Banville". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 September 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=246, accessed 23 November 2024.]
