John Banville was born in Wexford in Ireland in 1945. He was educated at a Christian Brothers’ school and St Peter’s College in Wexford. His father worked in a garage and died when Banville was in his early thirties; his mother was a housewife.
He is the youngest of three siblings. His older brother Vincent is also a novelist and has written under the name Vincent Lawrence as well as his own. His sister, Vonnie Banville-Evans, has written both a children’s novel and a reminiscence of growing up in Wexford.
John Banville intended to be a painter and an architect, but did not attend university. He has described this as “A great mistake. I should have gone. I regret not taking that four years of getting drunk and falling in love. But I wanted to get away from my family. I wanted to be free.”
Instead he worked for Aer Lingus in Dublin, an opportunity that enabled him to travel widely. He lived in the United States during 1968 and 1969. Then, on his return to Ireland he became a sub-editor at the Irish Press, rising eventually to the position of chief sub-editor.
After the Irish Press collapsed in 1995, he became a sub-editor at the Irish Times. He was appointed literary editor in 1998. However, The Irish Times also suffered severe financial problems, and Banville was offered the choice of taking a redundancy package or working as a features department sub-editor, and chose to leave.
Banville has two adult sons with his wife, the American textile artist Janet Dunham. They met during his visit to San Francisco in 1968 where she was a student at the University of California, Berkeley. Dunham described him during the writing process as being like “a murderer who’s just come back from a particularly bloody killing”. Banville has two daughters from his relationship with Patricia Quinn, former head of the Arts Council of Ireland.
Banville has a strong interest in animal rights, and is often featured in Irish media speaking out against vivisection in Irish university research.
Banville also writes under the pen name Benjamin Black. His first novel under this pen name was Christine Falls, which was followed by The Silver Swan in 2007.
Banville published his first book, Long Lankin, in 1970. It was followed by Nightspawn (1971) and Birchwood (1973), both novels. His stated ambition is to give his prose “the kind of denseness and thickness that poetry has”.
Prizes and Awards
- 1973 Allied Irish Banks’ Prize Birchwood
- 1973 Arts Council Macaulay Fellowship Birchwood
- 1975 American Ireland Fund Literary Award Dr Copernicus
- 1976 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Doctor Copernicus
- 1981 Guardian Fiction Prize Kepler
- 1981 Allied Irish Bank Fiction Prize Kepler
- 1981 American-Irish Foundation Award Birchwood
- 1989 Guinness Peat Aviation Award The Book of Evidence
- 1989 Booker Prize (shortlisted) The Book of Evidence
- 1997 Lannan Literary Award (Fiction)
- 2005 Booker Prize The Sea
- 2006 Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year The Sea
- 2006 British Book Awards Author of the Year (shortlist) The Sea
- 2007 Royal Society of Literature Fellowship
- 2007 Man Booker International Prize (shortlist)
