Ros Barber

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Ros Barber
Born1964 (age 60–61)
OccupationNovelist, poet, academic
NationalityBritish
Notable work The Marlowe Papers
Notable awards Desmond Elliott Prize, Authors' Club Best First Novel Award, Hoffman Prize
Website
rosbarber.com

Rosalind Barber [1] (born 1964) is an English novelist, poet and academic. [2] Her work include Material, a collection of poetry, and the novel The Marlowe Papers .

Contents

Education

She has a BSc in Biology, an MA in creative writing, the arts and education, and a PhD in English literature, all from the University of Sussex. Her PhD was completed in 2011 with a dissertation titled Writing Marlowe as writing Shakespeare. [3] [4] She also has an Open University BA in English literature and philosophy. [5]

Barber has worked as a computer programmer. [6]

Novels

Barber's first novel, The Marlowe Papers (2012), is written in blank verse and was part of a PhD. [7] She subscribes to the Marlovian theory of Shakespeare authorship, and is as of 2023 a director of research of the Shakespearean Authorship Trust. [8] [9] In 2013, she described herself as an "agnostic" on Marlowe as Shakespeare. [10] In the book, Marlowe's death is a ruse and he writes plays in Shakespeare's name. The book won the Hoffman Prize, [11] the Desmond Elliott Prize [12] and the Authors' Club First Novel Award. [13] Her second novel, Devotion (2015), [14] was shortlisted for the Encore Award. [15]

Together with Nicola Haydn, she wrote a one-man stage adaptation of The Marlowe Papers performed in 2016. [16] [17]

Poetry

Of Barber's three volumes of poetry, Material (2008) was a Poetry Book Society recommendation. [15] Its title poem, which also appears in the Faber anthology Poems of the Decade (2015), was in England's school sixth-form syllabus as of 2017. [18]

Academic position

As of 2021, Barber lectures in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her appointment ended in 2024. [19]

Awards and recognition

She won the Hoffman Prize in 2011, 2014 and 2018. [11] [20] [1]

YearWorkAwardResultRef
2011 The Marlowe Papers Hoffman Prize Won [11]
2013 Authors' Club First Novel Award Won
Desmond Elliott Prize Won
Women's Prize for Fiction Longlisted [21]
2014"Shortly he will forget to go" Hoffman Prize Won [20]
2015Devotion Encore Award Shortlisted [15]
2018"Big Data, Little Certainty" Hoffman Prize Won [1]

Bibliography

Novels

Poetry

Non-fiction

Personal life

Barber's parents, who were physicists, divorced when she was young. A brother of hers died of cancer. [22] [10]

Barber's first marriage ended in her mid-thirties. [22] [23] She later remarried. [22]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "The Calvin & Rose G Hoffman Prize winners". The King's School, Canterbury . 13 December 2018. Retrieved 6 January 2020.
  2. ↑ Forward Arts. Retrieved 27 October 2019.
  3. ↑ Barber, Rosalind. Writing Marlowe as writing Shakespeare (PhD thesis). University of Sussex.
  4. ↑ "Ros Barber | Research" . Retrieved 5 December 2025.
  5. ↑ "Dr Ros Barber". Goldsmiths, University of London. Archived from the original on 28 September 2023. Retrieved 19 September 2019.
  6. ↑ Masters, Tim (28 June 2013). "Author faced 'hostility' over book". BBC. Retrieved 2 January 2020.
  7. ↑ O Riordan, Adam (24 May 2012). "The Marlowe Papers by Ros Barber: review". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved 9 December 2025.
  8. ↑ Winkler, Elizabeth (May 2023). Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies. Simon & Schuster. p. 296. ISBN   9781982171261.
  9. ↑ Nicholl, Charles (25 January 2013). "Exiting the Stage". The New York Times. Retrieved 30 October 2019. Dr. Barber is a "Marlovian" not only in the generic and beneficial sense of being an admirer of Marlowe, but in the more specific and, some will say, more tiresome sense of being a believer in the theory that Marlowe wrote the plays of Shakespeare.
  10. 1 2 Collins, Robert (30 June 2013). "Love's labour's not lost". The Times . Retrieved 9 December 2025.
  11. 1 2 3 "THE MARLOWE PAPERS". Kirkus Reviews . Retrieved 6 January 2020.
  12. ↑ Masters, Tim (27 June 2013). "The Marlowe Papers wins Desmond Elliott Prize". BBC News. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  13. ↑ "Ros Barber – The Poetry Society". poetrysociety.org.uk. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  14. ↑ Feay, Suzi (19 August 2015). "Devotion by Ros Barber review – the conflict between religion and science". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 January 2020.
  15. 1 2 3 McLoughlin, Nigel (2016). The Portable Poetry Workshop. Macmillan Publishers. pp. viii. ISBN   978-1-137-60596-2 . Retrieved 6 January 2020.
  16. ↑ Hall, Duncan (29 January 2016). "The Marlowe Papers, Otherplace At The Basement, Kensington Street, Brighton, until Saturday, January 29, call 01273 987516". The Argus (Brighton) . Retrieved 30 September 2021.
  17. ↑ Barber, Ros (12 February 2016). "Further Developments with The Marlowe Papers". Ros Barber. Retrieved 30 September 2021.
  18. ↑ "Amendment to GCE AS and A level English Literature, Prescribed texts – Poems of the Decade" (PDF). pearson.com. Pearson. 4 January 2017. Retrieved 13 November 2017.
  19. ↑ Goldsmiths page. Retrieved March 29, 2025.
  20. 1 2 "Hoffman Prize Winners". The Marlowe Society. Retrieved 6 January 2020.
  21. ↑ "Women's Prize for Fiction 2013 longlist announced | News | RGfE". readinggroups.org. Retrieved 26 June 2024.
  22. 1 2 3 Barber, Ros (8 August 2025). "We're Just Here for the Sex, Please". Modern Love. The New York Times . Retrieved 5 December 2025.
  23. ↑ "From Brilliant Programmer to Bad Waitress". How To Evolve. Ros Barber.
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