Barry Unsworth
Encyclopedia
Barry Unsworth is a British
novelist who is known for novels with historical themes. He has published 15 novels, and has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times, winning once for the 1992 novel Sacred Hunger
.
, a mining village in County Durham
, England
.
He graduated from the University of Manchester
in 1951, and lived in France
for a year teaching English
. He also traveled extensively in Greece
and Turkey
during the 1960s, lecturing at the University of Athens and the University of Istanbul. His novels about fin-de-siecle Ottoman Empire, The Rage of the Vulture and Pascali's Island, were inspired by these experiences. His second novel, The Greeks Have a Word For It, was an out-growth of his teaching experience in Athens.
In 1999 he was a visiting professor at the University of Iowa's renowned Iowa Writers' Workshop
. In 2004 he taught literature
and creative writing
classes at Kenyon College
in Ohio
.
He currently lives in Umbria
, Italy
, with his second wife, a Finnish national. His novel After Hannibal is a fictionalised description of his efforts at settlement in the Italian countryside.
Other novels include Mooncranker's Gift (1973) (winner of the Heinemann Award), Stone Virgin (1985), and Losing Nelson
(1999). He counts William Faulkner, Eudora Welty and Carson McCullers as his major influences.
He did not start to write Historical Fiction until his 6th novel, Pascali's Island. Pascali's Island (1980), the first of his novels to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize, is set on an unnamed Aegean island during the last years of the Ottoman Empire
. Reflecting on this shift, he clarifies:"Nowadays I go to Britain relatively rarely and for short periods; in effect, I have become an expatriate. The result has been a certain loss of interest in British life and society and a very definite loss of confidence in my ability to register the contemporary scene there– the kind of things people say, the styles of dress, the politics etc.– with sufficient subtlety and accuracy. So I have turned to the past. The great advantage of this, for a writer of my temperament at least, is that one is freed from a great deal of surface clutter. One is enabled to take a remote period and use it as a distant mirror (to borrow Barbara Tuchman’s phrase), and so try to say things about our human condition– then and now– which transcend the particular period and become timeless." The novel was later adapted as a film
by James Dearden
, starring Charles Dance
, Helen Mirren
, and Ben Kingsley
as the title character.
Morality Play
, shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1995, is a murder mystery set in 14th-century England, and was adapted as a film, called The Reckoning, starring Paul Bettany
and Willem Dafoe
.
"With time I have grown more sparing with the words. I think less of fire-works and flourishes. I try to get warmth and color through precision of language. This is more difficult, I think, which may be why I find writing novels so challenging and exacting."
(1992) centers on the Atlantic slave trade that moves from Liverpool to West Africa, Florida and the West Indies. It was joint winner of the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1992, along with Michael Ondaatje
's The English Patient
.
The story is set in the mid 18th century and centers around the Liverpool Merchant, a slave ship employed in the triangular trade
, a central trade route in the Atlantic slave trade
. The two main characters are cousins Erasmus Kemp, son of a wealthy merchant from Lancashire, and Matthew Paris, a physician and scientist who goes on the voyage. The novel's central theme is greed
, with the subject of slavery
being a primary medium for exploring the issue. The story line has a very extensive cast of characters, some featuring in only one scene, others continually developed throughout the story, but most described in intricate detail. The narrative interweaves elements of appalling cruelty and horror with extended comedic interludes, and employs frequent period expressions.
Sugar and Rum (1988) was a novel set in contemporary Liverpool
about a writer who is trying to write a novel about the Liverpool Slave Trade, and who is suffering from writer's block
; Unsworth wrote this novel to try and get over his own block during the writing of Sacred Hunger.
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
novelist who is known for novels with historical themes. He has published 15 novels, and has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times, winning once for the 1992 novel Sacred Hunger
Sacred Hunger
Sacred Hunger is a historical novel by Barry Unsworth first published in 1992. It shared the Booker Prize that year with Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient....
.
Personal life
Unsworth was born in WingateWingate, County Durham
Wingate is a village in County Durham, EnglandWingate is a former pit village with a mixture of 19th-century, post-war, and more recent housing developments, it was originally enhabited by around 30 farmers before 1839 when coal was discovered. It is located in the East of County Durham, three...
, a mining village in County Durham
County Durham
County Durham is a ceremonial county and unitary district in north east England. The county town is Durham. The largest settlement in the ceremonial county is the town of Darlington...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
.
He graduated from the University of Manchester
University of Manchester
The University of Manchester is a public research university located in Manchester, United Kingdom. It is a "red brick" university and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive British universities and the N8 Group...
in 1951, and lived in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
for a year teaching English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. He also traveled extensively in Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
and Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
during the 1960s, lecturing at the University of Athens and the University of Istanbul. His novels about fin-de-siecle Ottoman Empire, The Rage of the Vulture and Pascali's Island, were inspired by these experiences. His second novel, The Greeks Have a Word For It, was an out-growth of his teaching experience in Athens.
In 1999 he was a visiting professor at the University of Iowa's renowned Iowa Writers' Workshop
Iowa Writers' Workshop
The Program in Creative Writing, more commonly known as the Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa, is a highly regarded graduate-level creative writing program in the United States...
. In 2004 he taught literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
and creative writing
Creative writing
Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...
classes at Kenyon College
Kenyon College
Kenyon College is a private liberal arts college in Gambier, Ohio, founded in 1824 by Bishop Philander Chase of The Episcopal Church, in parallel with the Bexley Hall seminary. It is the oldest private college in Ohio...
in Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
.
He currently lives in Umbria
Umbria
Umbria is a region of modern central Italy. It is one of the smallest Italian regions and the only peninsular region that is landlocked.Its capital is Perugia.Assisi and Norcia are historical towns associated with St. Francis of Assisi, and St...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, with his second wife, a Finnish national. His novel After Hannibal is a fictionalised description of his efforts at settlement in the Italian countryside.
Writing career and stylistic shifts
Unsworth was a late starter. His first novel, The Partnership, was published when he was 36 in 1966. "...in my earlier novels, especially the two written in the early ’70s, The Hide and Mooncranker’s Gift, there was a baroque quality in the style, a density. The mood was grim, but the language was more figurative and more high-spirited. There was more delight in it, more self-indulgence, too. Among my earliest influences as a writer were the American novelists of the deep south, especially Eudora Welty, and some of that elated, grotesque comedy stayed with me."Other novels include Mooncranker's Gift (1973) (winner of the Heinemann Award), Stone Virgin (1985), and Losing Nelson
Losing Nelson
Losing Nelson is a 1999 novel by Barry Unsworth. Its protagonist is Charles Cleasby, who is obsessed with Lord Nelson, attempts to re-enact events of "Horatio"'s life to the point of feeling that he is the admiral, and who is writing a hagiographic biography. His typist, the down-to-earth Miss...
(1999). He counts William Faulkner, Eudora Welty and Carson McCullers as his major influences.
He did not start to write Historical Fiction until his 6th novel, Pascali's Island. Pascali's Island (1980), the first of his novels to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize, is set on an unnamed Aegean island during the last years of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
. Reflecting on this shift, he clarifies:"Nowadays I go to Britain relatively rarely and for short periods; in effect, I have become an expatriate. The result has been a certain loss of interest in British life and society and a very definite loss of confidence in my ability to register the contemporary scene there– the kind of things people say, the styles of dress, the politics etc.– with sufficient subtlety and accuracy. So I have turned to the past. The great advantage of this, for a writer of my temperament at least, is that one is freed from a great deal of surface clutter. One is enabled to take a remote period and use it as a distant mirror (to borrow Barbara Tuchman’s phrase), and so try to say things about our human condition– then and now– which transcend the particular period and become timeless." The novel was later adapted as a film
Pascali's Island (film)
Pascali's Island is a 1988 British drama film, based on the novel by Barry Unsworth. It was written and directed by James Dearden. It stars Ben Kingsley, Charles Dance and Helen Mirren...
by James Dearden
James Dearden
James Dearden is an English film director and screenwriter, the son of acclaimed English film maker Basil Dearden. He directed seven films between 1977 and 1999...
, starring Charles Dance
Charles Dance
Walter Charles Dance, OBE is an English actor, screenwriter and director. Dance typically plays assertive bureaucrats or villains. His most famous roles are Guy Perron in The Jewel in the Crown , Dr Clemens, the doctor of penitentiary Fury 161, who becomes Ellen Ripley's confidante in Alien 3 ,...
, Helen Mirren
Helen Mirren
Dame Helen Mirren, DBE is an English actor. She has won an Academy Award for Best Actress, four SAG Awards, four BAFTAs, three Golden Globes, four Emmy Awards, and two Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Awards.-Early life and family:...
, and Ben Kingsley
Ben Kingsley
Sir Ben Kingsley, CBE is a British actor. He has won an Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards in his career. He is known for starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the film Gandhi in 1982, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...
as the title character.
Morality Play
Morality Play
Morality Play is a semi-historical detective novel by Barry Unsworth. The book, published in 1995 by Hamish Hamilton was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.-Synopsis:...
, shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1995, is a murder mystery set in 14th-century England, and was adapted as a film, called The Reckoning, starring Paul Bettany
Paul Bettany
Paul Bettany is an English actor. He has appeared in a wide variety of films, including A Knight's Tale, A Beautiful Mind, and The Da Vinci Code...
and Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe is an American film, stage, and voice actor, and a founding member of the experimental theatre company The Wooster Group...
.
"With time I have grown more sparing with the words. I think less of fire-works and flourishes. I try to get warmth and color through precision of language. This is more difficult, I think, which may be why I find writing novels so challenging and exacting."
Booker Prize
Sacred HungerSacred Hunger
Sacred Hunger is a historical novel by Barry Unsworth first published in 1992. It shared the Booker Prize that year with Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient....
(1992) centers on the Atlantic slave trade that moves from Liverpool to West Africa, Florida and the West Indies. It was joint winner of the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1992, along with Michael Ondaatje
Michael Ondaatje
Philip Michael Ondaatje , OC, is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian novelist and poet of Burgher origin. He is perhaps best known for his Booker Prize-winning novel, The English Patient, which was adapted into an Academy-Award-winning film.-Life and work:...
's The English Patient
The English Patient
The English Patient is a 1992 novel by Sri Lankan-Canadian novelist Michael Ondaatje. The story deals with the gradually revealed histories of a critically burned English accented Hungarian man, his Canadian nurse, a Canadian-Italian thief, and an Indian sapper in the British Army as they live out...
.
The story is set in the mid 18th century and centers around the Liverpool Merchant, a slave ship employed in the triangular trade
Triangular trade
Triangular trade, or triangle trade, is a historical term indicating among three ports or regions. Triangular trade usually evolves when a region has export commodities that are not required in the region from which its major imports come...
, a central trade route in the Atlantic slave trade
Atlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade, also known as the trans-atlantic slave trade, refers to the trade in slaves that took place across the Atlantic ocean from the sixteenth through to the nineteenth centuries...
. The two main characters are cousins Erasmus Kemp, son of a wealthy merchant from Lancashire, and Matthew Paris, a physician and scientist who goes on the voyage. The novel's central theme is greed
Greed
Greed is an excessive desire to possess wealth, goods, or abstract things of value with the intention to keep it for one's self. Greed is inappropriate expectation...
, with the subject of slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
being a primary medium for exploring the issue. The story line has a very extensive cast of characters, some featuring in only one scene, others continually developed throughout the story, but most described in intricate detail. The narrative interweaves elements of appalling cruelty and horror with extended comedic interludes, and employs frequent period expressions.
Sugar and Rum (1988) was a novel set in contemporary Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
about a writer who is trying to write a novel about the Liverpool Slave Trade, and who is suffering from writer's block
Writer's block
Writer's block is a condition, primarily associated with writing as a profession, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work. The condition varies widely in intensity. It can be trivial, a temporary difficulty in dealing with the task at hand. At the other extreme, some "blocked"...
; Unsworth wrote this novel to try and get over his own block during the writing of Sacred Hunger.
Novels
- The Partnership (19661966 in literatureThe year 1966 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*February 14 - Dissident writers Yuli Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky are sentenced to hard labour for "anti-Soviet activity"....
) - The Greeks Have a Word For ItThe Greeks Have a Word For ItThe Greeks Have a Word For It is the second novel by Booker Prize-winning author Barry Unsworth published by Hutchinson in 1967. It has since been republished by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 1993 and W. W. Norton & Company in 2002...
(19671967 in literatureThe year 1967 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Influential science fiction anthology Dangerous Visions published.*Cecil Day-Lewis is selected as the new Poet Laureate of the UK.-New books:...
) - The Hide (19701970 in literatureThe year 1970 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* Deliverance by American poet James Dickey published...
) - Mooncranker's Gift (19731973 in literatureThe year 1973 in literature involved several significant events and the writing of many notable books.-Events:*September 25 - The funeral of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda becomes a focus for protests against the new government of Augusto Pinochet...
) - The Big Day (19761976 in literatureThe year 1976 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* Saul Bellow won both the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.-New books:*Kingsley Amis – The Alteration...
) - Pascali's Island (19801980 in literatureThe year 1980 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Marguerite Yourcenar becomes the first woman to be elected to the Académie française....
) (US edition first published as The Idol Hunter) - The Rage of the Vulture (19821982 in literatureThe year 1982 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*La Bicyclette Bleue by Régine Deforges becomes France's best selling novel ever.-New books:...
) - Stone Virgin (19851985 in literatureThe year 1985 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Isaac Asimov - Robots and Empire*Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale*Jean M. Auel - The Mammoth Hunters*Iain Banks - Walking on Glass...
) - Sugar and Rum (19881988 in literatureThe year 1988 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Margaret Atwood - Cat's Eye*J.G. Ballard - Memories of the Space Age*Iain M...
) - Sacred HungerSacred HungerSacred Hunger is a historical novel by Barry Unsworth first published in 1992. It shared the Booker Prize that year with Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient....
(19921992 in literatureThe year 1992 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Ben Aaronovitch - Transit*Julia Álvarez - How the García Girls Lost Their Accents*Paul Auster - Leviathan*Iain Banks - The Crow Road...
) - Morality Play (19951995 in literatureThe year 1995 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*The Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea is opened by Jimmy Carter....
) - After Hannibal (19961996 in literatureThe year 1996 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Harper Lee's novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, is removed from an advanced placement English reading list in Lindale, Texas because it "conflicted with the values of the community."* In the United Kingdom, the first...
) - Losing NelsonLosing NelsonLosing Nelson is a 1999 novel by Barry Unsworth. Its protagonist is Charles Cleasby, who is obsessed with Lord Nelson, attempts to re-enact events of "Horatio"'s life to the point of feeling that he is the admiral, and who is writing a hagiographic biography. His typist, the down-to-earth Miss...
(19991999 in literatureThe year 1999 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*June 19 - Stephen King is hit by a Dodge van while taking a walk. He spends the next three weeks hospitalized...
) - The Songs of the Kings (20022002 in literatureThe year 2002 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*March 16: Authorities in Saudi Arabia arrested and jailed poet Abdul Mohsen Musalam and fired a newspaper editor following the publication of Musalam's poem The Corrupt on Earth that criticized the state's Islamic...
) - The Ruby in her NavelThe Ruby in her NavelThe Ruby in Her navel is a historical novel by Barry Unsworth first published in 2006. It was long listed for the Booker Prize that year....
(20062006 in literatureThe year 2006 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Literature:*Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Half of a Yellow Sun*Chris Adrian - The Children's Hospital *Martin Amis - House of Meetings...
) - Land of MarvelsLand of MarvelsLand of Marvels is a historical novel by the author Barry Unsworth. It is set in Mesopotamia on the eve of the first world war.-Synopsis:John Somerville, an archaeologist digging in Mesopotamia, is racing against time hoping he'll make an important discovery before the German built Baghdad Railway...
(20092009 in literatureThe year 2009 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*8 October - Romanian-born German novelist Herta Müller wins the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature....
) - The Quality of MercyThe Quality of Mercy (book)The Quality of Mercy is the title of several different books. The phrase taken from a speech by Portia in William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice. The speech begins:...
(20112011 in literatureThe year 2011 will involve some significant events and new books.-Events:*Tomas Tranströmer wins the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature.*Jennifer Egan wins the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novel A Visit From the Goon Squad.-Literature:*T.C...
)
External links
- 2008 interview with LITTORAL: the journal of the Key West Literary Seminar
- Audio recordings from Key West Literary Seminar, 2009: Unsworth reading from Land of Marvels | 'The Economy of Truth' (lecture) | 'Why Bother with the Past?' (lecture)
- http://www.victorialautman.com/interviews/barry-unsworth.shtml Land of Marvels broadcast interview on WFMT Radio