John Banville to Become Visiting Professor of Creative Writing

23 Aug 2019

Booker Award-winning author John Banville is to become visiting professor of creative writing at University College Cork. Banville will take up the role for the 2019-20 academic year, and will teach undergraduate and postgraduate courses in the School of English and Digital Humanities.

Banville is the author of 17 novels including his early scientific trilogy of Kepler, Dr Copernicus and The Newton Letter as well as the Booker short-listed, The Book of Evidence.  His novel, The Sea, won the Man Booker Prize in 2005. His most recent novel is Mrs Osmond, a continuation of Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady. He has also written a memoir, a collection of short fiction, travel literature, several plays and film scripts.

Banville also writes detective fiction as Benjamin Black. Those novels include the Quirke series, the first three books of which were televised by the BBC, and The Black-Eyed Blonde, a Philip Marlowe novel commissioned by the Raymond Chandler estate.

As well as contributing to undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, Banville will give two public readings during his year in the post, which is supported by an anonymous philanthropic donation to UCC.