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Nicola Barker | |
|---|---|
| Born | 30 March 1966 Ely, England |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Nationality | British |
| Period | 1994–present |
Nicola Barker (born 30 March 1966) is an English novelist and short story writer.
|
Nicola Barker | |
|---|---|
| Born | 30 March 1966 Ely, England |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Nationality | British |
| Period | 1994–present |
Nicola Barker (born 30 March 1966) is an English novelist and short story writer.
Barker was born in Ely, Cambridgeshire, England on 30 March 1966. [1] While still young, her parents left England and settled in South Africa. [2] [3]
Barker typically writes about damaged or eccentric people in mundane situations, and has a fondness for bleak, isolated settings. Wide Open and Behindlings are set respectively on the Isle of Sheppey and Canvey Island. Together with Darkmans (2007), they form an informal trilogy based around the Thames Gateway. [4] Darkmans won the 2008 Hawthornden Prize. Patrick Ness's review in The Guardian described the book as "phenomenally good" despite it being an "838-page epic with little describable plot, taking place over just a few days and set in...Ashford" [5]
Her 2004 novel, Clear, is set in London during David Blaine's Above the Below 44-day fast in London in 2003.
The Booker Prize, formerly the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a literary award conferred each year for the best single work of sustained fiction written in the English language, which was published in the United Kingdom and/or Ireland. The winner of the Booker Prize receives £50,000, as well as international publicity that usually leads to a significant sales boost. When the prize was created, only novels written by Commonwealth, Irish, and South African citizens were eligible to receive the prize; in 2014, eligibility was widened to any English-language novel—a change that proved controversial.
The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin (1879–1954), who is best known for writing the Australian classic My Brilliant Career (1901). She bequeathed her estate to fund this award. As of 2016, the award is valued at A$60,000.
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The International Booker Prize is an international literary award hosted in the United Kingdom. The introduction of the International Prize to complement the Man Booker Prize, as the Booker Prize was then known, was announced in June 2004. Sponsored by the Man Group, from 2005 until 2015 the award was given every two years to a living author of any nationality for a body of work published in English or generally available in English translation. It rewarded one author's "continued creativity, development and overall contribution to fiction on the world stage", and was a recognition of the writer's body of work rather than any one title.
Philip Blake Morrison FRSL is an English poet and author who has published in a wide range of fiction and non-fiction genres. His greatest success came with the publication of his memoirs And When Did You Last See Your Father? (1993), which won the J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography. He has also written a study of the murder of James Bulger, As If. Since 2003, Morrison has been Professor of Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College, University of London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
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Jon McGregor is a British novelist and short story writer. In 2002, his first novel was longlisted for the Booker Prize, making him then the youngest-ever contender. His second and fourth novels were longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2006 and 2017 respectively. In 2012, his third novel, Even the Dogs, was awarded the International Dublin Literary Award. The New York Times has labelled him a "wicked British writer".
Hisham Matar is an American born British-Libyan writer. His memoir of the search for his father, The Return, won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography and the 2017 PEN America Jean Stein Book Award. His debut novel In the Country of Men was shortlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize. Matar's essays have appeared in the Asharq al-Awsat, The Independent, The Guardian, The Times and The New York Times. His second novel, Anatomy of a Disappearance, was published to wide acclaim on 3 March 2011. He lives and writes in London.
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Darkmans is a novel by Nicola Barker written in 2007. The 838 page book takes place in Ashford, in Kent and focuses on a father-son pair named Daniel and Kane Beede. The book was a finalist for the 2007 Man Booker Prize. It is the third of a loose trilogy by the author. The Guardian ranked Darkmans #93 in its list of 100 Best Books of the 21st Century.
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