John Banville

"John Banville is one of my favorite writers alive, and I pick up his books whenever I need a reminder how to write a good sentence." --R. F. Kuang Booker Prize winner and "Irish master" (New Yorker) John Banville delivers a richly atmospheric new mystery about a woman's sudden disappearance in a small coastal town in Ireland, where nothing is as it seems. 1950s, rural Ireland. A loner comes across a mysteriously empty car in a field, and soon finds himself embroiled in a troubling missing person case, as a husband claims his wife may have thrown herself into the sea. Called in from Dublin to investigate is Detective Inspector Strafford, who turns to the flawed but brilliant pathologist Quirke. But as the case unfolds, events from the past resurface that may have life-altering ramifications for all involved. At once a searing mystery "full of simmering dramatic tension" (Boston Globe) and a profound meditation on the hidden worlds we all inhabit, The Drowned is the next great Strafford and Quirke novel from a beloved writer at the top of his game. "Banville's reputation precedes him." --Parade

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF SNOW'A marvellous and rewarding novelist . . . He is a magician, really.' THE SCOTSMAN'Banville has a grim gift of seeing people's souls.' DON DeLILLO'The most eminent innovator in Irish fiction of the last 50 years.' IRISH TIMES'One of my favourite writers alive.' REBECCA F. KUANG 'Banville writes prose of such luscious elegance.' NEW YORK TIMESEverything was a puzzle, everything a trap set to mystify and hinder me. . . 1899. As the new century approaches, English hack-writer Evelyn Dolman marries Laura Rensselaer, the daughter of a wealthy American plutocrat. But in the midst of a mysterious rift between Laura and her father, Evelyn's plans of a substantial inheritance are thrown into doubt. As the unhappy newlyweds travel to Venice at Palazzo Dioscuri - the ancestral home of the charming but treacherous Count Barbarigo - a series of seemingly otherworldly occurrences exacerbate Evelyn's already frayed nerves: is it just the sea mist blanketing the floating city or is he losing his mind?

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF SNOW'A marvellous and rewarding novelist . . . He is a magician, really.' THE SCOTSMAN'Banville has a grim gift of seeing people's souls.' DON DeLILLO'The most eminent innovator in Irish fiction of the last 50 years.' IRISH TIMES'One of my favourite writers alive.' REBECCA F. KUANG 'Banville writes prose of such luscious elegance.' NEW YORK TIMESEverything was a puzzle, everything a trap set to mystify and hinder me. . . 1899. As the new century approaches, English hack-writer Evelyn Dolman marries Laura Rensselaer, the daughter of a wealthy American plutocrat. But in the midst of a mysterious rift between Laura and her father, Evelyn's plans of a substantial inheritance are thrown into doubt. As the unhappy newlyweds travel to Venice at Palazzo Dioscuri - the ancestral home of the charming but treacherous Count Barbarigo - a series of seemingly otherworldly occurrences exacerbate Evelyn's already frayed nerves: is it just the sea mist blanketing the floating city or is he losing his mind?

Quirke returns in the third volume of John Banville's celebrated series A junior doctor at a local hospital, April Latimer is a scandalous presence in the conservative and highly patriarchal society of 1950s Dublin: the independently-minded scion of a well-connected family, she has decidedly unconventional taste in men. When she vanishes, her friend Phoebe fears the worst--and calls on her father, forensic pathologist Quirke, for help. Sober again after intensive treatment for alcoholism, Quirke enlists his old sparring partner, Detective Inspector Hackett, in the search for the missing young woman. In their separate ways the two men retrace April's trail through Dublin's seedier side. But as Quirke contends with a beguiling actress, racial tensions, and April's formidable family, Phoebe finds she is being watched... Elegy for April is a masterclass in tension and atmosphere from "one of the best novelists in English" (The Guardian).

In the second book of John Banville's masterful Quirke series, a faked suicide ensnares the pathologist in a deadly web of cons and deceit It has been two years since the events of Christine Falls, the bestselling novel that introduced the world to irascible Dublin pathologist Quirke. Quirke's beloved Sarah has died, his surrogate father lies paralyzed by a stroke, and he's been sober for half a year. When a near-forgotten acquaintance asks him to cover up his beautiful young wife's apparent suicide, Quirke knows he should stay clear, for the sake of his sobriety and his peace of mind. But his old itch is irresistible, and before long he is probing further into the circumstances of Deirdre Hunt's death, into a web of drugs and illicit sex that may have snared his own daughter, Phoebe. With its vivid, intense evocation of seedy 1950s Dublin, and intricate, psychologically complex storyline, The Silver Swan shows "the Irish master" (The New Yorker) at the top of his game.

"It was not the dead that seemed to Quirke uncanny but the living." Quirke is a haunted, hard-drinking pathologist stumbling through the brooding gloom of 1950s Dublin. It is a society of secrets and meanness, dominated by a rigid hierarchy--as Quirke is reminded of when he catches his well-connected brother-in-law faking morgue records. The cause of this tampering is the corpse of a mysterious woman: Christine Falls. But who is she, and how did she die? Quirke's hunt for the answers to these questions will draw him into a transatlantic conspiracy and pit him against some of Dublin's most powerful forces, from the Catholic Church to members of his own family. Originally published under the pseudonym Benjamin Black, John Banville's debut thriller reveals a new side of "Ireland's greatest living novelist" (The New York Times).

Konets 1950-kh godov, Ispanija. Patologoanatom Kvirk iz Dublina, chelovek s burnym proshlym i pronitsatelnym, no jarostnym umom, otdykhaet na idillicheskom kurorte San-Sebastjana so svoej prekrasnoj zhenoj. Svarlivyj domosed, Kvirk tjagotitsja novymi oschuschenijami, no odnazhdy vo vremja uzhina v kafe zamechaet znakomoe litso i ponimaet, chto vstretilsja s chelovekom, kotorogo ne dolzhno byt v zhivykh. Ego oburevaet neverojatnyj interes k novomu delu, kotoroe sposobno privezti k krakhu tseluju dinastiju irlandskikh politikov. Mimoletnaja vstrecha ekhom otdaetsja v samykh vysshikh eshelonakh vlasti, i v Ispaniju pribyvaet detektiv-inspektor Strafford s zadaniem vyvedat vse podrobnosti. No sjuda priezzhaet ne tolko on, i vskore na poberezhe proletsja krov. Perevodchik: Romanin Evgenij Vladimirovich

'Banville is one of my favourite writers alive.' REBECCA F. KUANG'Beautifully written and intriguing.' GUARDIANHe had seen drowned people. A sight not to be forgotten.1950s, rural Ireland. A loner comes across a mysteriously empty car in a field. Knowing he shouldn't approach, but unable to hold back, he soon finds himself embroiled in a troubling missing person's case, as a husband claims his wife may have thrown herself into the sea. Called in from Dublin to investigate is Detective Inspector Strafford, who soon turns to his old ally - the flawed but brilliant pathologist Quirke - a man he is linked to in increasingly complicated ways. Readers were gripped by The Drowned:'Addictive and atmospheric' ?????'Remarkable . . . it took my breath away' ?????'Another flawless Strafford and Quirke mystery' ?????'Outstanding, Banville is the best crime writer out there' ????? On UK bestseller list w/e 13/11/2021-27/11/2021 for Paperback Fiction

“Ours is an ill-mannered society that wears those bad manners as a badge not just of its moral rectitude but of its millenarian ethical ambitions. At the same time, in no society in recent memory have people been so easily affronted.” At a time when political writing and cultural criticism have come to be dominated by an insipid and unthinking moralism, David Rieff’s essays offer a bracing antidote. As well as being one of the English-speaking world’s most perceptive commentators on global politics, Rieff has in recent years been one of its most courageous and outspoken critics of the pathologies of identity politics—in particular, its grossly simplistic understanding of what it means to belong to a culture or a community, its fundamental failure to grasp the real value of the creative arts, and its increasing disregard for due process and freedom of expression. The essays that appear in Desire and Fate serve both as a crucial record of and a fierce protest against these developments. Covering topics as diverse as censorship in contemporary publishing, the cultural ubiquity of the notion of trauma, and the future of democracy on a global level, they are all characterised by an incisive intelligence and a refreshing lack of wishful thinking. Together they confirm Rieff’s status as an indispensable writer and thinker.

1957 god, Irlandija. Detektiva-inspektora Strafforda vyzyvajut iz Dublina dlja rassledovanija ubijstva v Balliglas-khause - uedinennom pomeste Osbornov, predstavitelej mestnoj aristokratii. Delo slozhnoe i chrevatoe skandalom, tak kak zhertvoj stal prikhodskoj svjaschennik. Pogoda portitsja, dorogi zametaet metel, glava semejstva pytaetsja ubedit politsiju, chto vo vsem vinovat neizvestnyj grabitel, khotja nikakikh priznakov vzloma net. Strafford, melankholichnyj i pronitsatelnyj potomok znatnogo roda, khochet vo chto by to ni stalo najti ubijtsu, no vse vokrug chto-to skryvajut i namereny khranit svoi sekrety. Postepenno klassicheskij anglijskij detektiv priobretaet vse bolee zhutkie ottenki, a inspektor ponimaet, chto stolknulsja s nastojaschim zlom.

THE BRAND NEW STRAFFORD AND QUIRKE MURDER MYSTERY FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF SNOW. A CHILLING MUST-READ.'Banville is one of my favourite writers alive.' REBECCA F. KUANG'Haunting . . . compelling.' DAILY MAIL'Richly atmospheric.' IRISH INDEPENDENT'Suspenseful.' OBSERVER'A brilliant detecting team.' IRISH EXAMINER He had seen drowned people. A sight not to be forgotten.1950s, rural Ireland. A loner comes across a mysteriously empty car in a field. Knowing he shouldn't approach, but unable to hold back, he soon finds himself embroiled in a troubling missing person's case, as a husband claims his wife may have thrown herself into the sea. Called in from Dublin to investigate is Detective Inspector Strafford, who soon turns to his old ally - the flawed but brilliant pathologist Quirke - a man he is linked to in increasingly complicated ways. Praise for Snow:'Superb . . . crime fiction for the connoisseur.' The Times'Outstanding.' Irish Independent'Exquisite.' Daily Mail'Compelling.' Sunday Times'Superb to the last drop.' IndependentOn UK bestseller list w/e 13/11/2021-27/11/2021 for Paperback Fiction

The richly atmospheric new Strafford and Quirke murder mystery, from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Snow. He had seen drowned people. A sight not to be forgotten.1950s, rural Ireland. A loner comes across a mysteriously empty car in a field. Knowing he shouldn't approach, but unable to hold back, he soon finds himself embroiled in a troubling missing person's case, as a husband claims his wife may have thrown herself into the sea. Called in from Dublin to investigate is Detective Inspector Strafford, who soon turns to his old ally - the flawed but brilliant pathologist Quirke - a man he is linked to in increasingly complicated ways.

From the renowned Booker Prize winner and nationally bestselling author of Snow comes a richly atmospheric new mystery about a woman's sudden disappearance in a small coastal town in Ireland, where nothing is as it seems." John Banville is one of my favorite writers alive, and I pick up his books whenever I need a reminder how to write a good sentence."--R. F. KuangAmazon Editors' Pick: Best Literature and Fiction books of October"He had seen drowned people. A sight not to be forgotten."1950s, rural Ireland. A loner comes across a mysteriously empty car in a field. Knowing he shouldn't approach but unable to hold back, he soon finds himself embroiled in a troubling missing person case, as a husband claims his wife may have thrown herself into the sea. Called in from Dublin to investigate is Detective Inspector Strafford, who soon turns to his old ally--the flawed but brilliant pathologist Quirke--a man he is linked to in increasingly complicated ways. But as the case unfolds, events from the past resurface that may have life-altering ramifications for all involved. At once a searing mystery and a profound meditation on the hidden worlds we all inhabit, The Drowned is the next great Strafford and Quirke novel from a beloved writer at the top of his game.

‘You can smell and feel and see his world with extraordinary clarity. It is a work of art, and I’ll bet it will still be read and admired in seventy-five years’ – The TimesThe Sea is John Banville's remarkable, Booker prize-winning exploration of memory, childhood and loss. When art historian Max Morden returns to the seaside village where he once spent a childhood holiday, he is both escaping from a recent loss and confronting a distant trauma. The Grace family had appeared that long-ago summer as if from another world. Mr and Mrs Grace, with their worldly ease and candour, were unlike any adults he had met before. But it was his contemporaries, the Grace twins Myles and Chloe, who most fascinated Max. He grew to know them intricately, even intimately. What happened next would haunt him for the rest of his years, and shape everything that was to follow. Part of the Picador Collection, a series celebrating fifty years of Picador books and showcasing the best of modern literature.

This selection of documentary photography by Billy Mundow matches monochrome images of Ireland from the 1960s to the words of Irish poets, recalling lost generations. Themes of a vanished world spool through the pages, capturing the remote and sparsely populated West of Ireland and its islands – places of breathtaking beauty and tranquillity – the midlands and Dublin’s streetscapes. Concentrating on portraiture and personality, the work follows in the footsteps of the late Bill Doyle. Scenes depicted in The Moving Land become less familiar as time passes, but the poetry paired with each image resonates and connects the viewer with a living heritage. Poems by Gerald Dawe, Patrick Kavanagh, Richard Murphy, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Moya Cannon, Paul Durcan, Paul Muldoon, and the photographer, take the form of a dinnseanchas and feature throughout. Like a magic lantern, these images flicker from west to east, illuminating Inishbofin, County Galway; Tory Island, County Donegal; rural Ireland; and Dublin City. ‘Billy Mundow’s photographs were taken in the 1960s, in an Ireland that seems to us as archaic as Arcady. This Ireland is a place we recognize but no longer know. Perhaps on the western islands, or in the wilds of Connemara, something of the old world survives. But who now can remember a horse being led along a muddy lane with a sea wall on one side and cottages on the other? Which of us recalls the planter’s daughter wreathed in a headscarf and a smile? Where now are those two forlorn children glimpsed in a doorway one overcast evening? … These photographs, Billy Mundow tells us, were taken on the fly, on the sly. This is how Cartier-Bresson worked, his Leica concealed in a pocket, watching for the moment when the wind swooped and the world’s skirts blew up.’ John Banville

A classic novel of family, isolation and a blighted Ireland from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea depicts the end of innocence for a boy and his country. Once the big house on an Irish estate, Birchwood has turned into a dilapidated family manor filled with memories and despair. One disaster succeeds another, until young Gabriel Godkin runs away to join a traveling circus and look for his long-lost twin sister. Soon he discovers that famine and unrest stalk the countryside, and Ireland is ruined too. Told with lyrical prose, John Banville's Birchwood is the elegiac story of the aristocratic decline of an eccentric family riddled with dark secrets. "John Banville is one of the greatest masters of the English language." --The Scotsman

The classic novel by "Irish master" (New Yorker) and Booker Prize-winner John Banville brings to life the dramatic and surprising world of sixteenth-century astronomer Nicolas Copernicus and the theory that would shatter the medieval view of the universe. Sixteenth-century Europe is teeming with change and controversy: wars are being waged by princes and bishops and the repercussions of Luther are being felt through a convulsing Germany. In a remote corner of Poland, a modest canon is practicing medicine and studying the heavens, preparing a theory that will shatter the medieval view of the universe. In this astonishing work of historical imagination, John Banville offers a vivid portrait of a man of painful reticence. For, in a world that is equal parts splendor and barbarism, an obscure cleric who seeks "the secret music of the universe" poses a most devastating threat. "A tour de force... Exciting, beautifully written and astonishingly redolent of the late medieval world." --The Times