John Banville

Award won Role or nomination

1. 1945 age 0

   Born

2. 2011 age 66

   CreditAlbert Nobbsscreenwriter

• MMMichael McElhatton1 title
• BGBronagh Gallagher1 title
• MWMark Williams1 title
• BGBrendan Gleeson1 title
• SWSteven Weisberg1 title
• ATAaron Taylor-Johnson1 title
• RMRodrigo García Márquez1 title
• MWMia Wasikowska1 title
• GCGlenn Close1 title
• EFEmerald Fennell1 title

• Influenced by

  • HJHenry James

Nothing recorded for: Spouse, Partner, Parents, Children, Siblings, Studied under, Taught.

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  Photo:Jindřich Nosek (NoJin)CC BY-SA 4.0

• The past beats inside me like a second heart.

  John Banville, CC BY-SA 4.0

• Ian McEwan is a very good writer; the first half of Atonement alone would ensure him a lasting place in English letters.

  John Banville, CC BY-SA 4.0

• Saturday is a dismayingly bad book. The numerous set pieces—brain operations, squash game, the encounters with Baxter, etc. — are hinged together with the subtlety of a child's Erector Set. The characters too, for all the nuzzling and cuddling and punching and manhandling in which they are made to indulge, drift in their separate spheres, together but never touching, like the dim stars of a lost galaxy. The politics of the book is banal, of the sort that is to be heard at any middle-class Saturday-night dinner party, before the talk moves on to property prices and recipes for fish stew. There are good things here, for instance the scene when Perowne visits his senile mother in an old-folks' home, in which the writing is genuinely affecting in its simplicity and empathetic force. Overall, however, Saturday has the feel of a neoliberal polemic gone badly wrong; if Tony Blair — who makes a fleeting personal appearance in the book, oozing insincerity — were to appoint a committee to produc

  John Banville, CC BY-SA 4.0

• Saramago is … interesting, but I don't think I would put it higher than that … [he] ventures too far into the realm of 'magic realism' for my taste. Reality itself is magical enough without inventing whimsicalities.

  John Banville, CC BY-SA 4.0

• If they give me the bloody prize, why can't they say nice things about me?

  John Banville, CC BY-SA 4.0

• The white May blossom swooned slowly into the open mouth of the grave.

  John Banville, CC BY-SA 4.0