The Secret Scripture
Award History
| Award | Year | Status |
|---|---|---|
| James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction | 2008 | Winner |
About This Book
The Secret Scripture is Sebastian Barry's fifth novel, told in alternating voices: Roseanne McNulty, a centenarian patient in a Roscommon psychiatric hospital, secretly writes her memoir, while the hospital's psychiatrist Dr Grene records his own growing interest in her past. As both accounts converge, they reveal a hidden history of Ireland's turbulent twentieth century — sectarian violence, the Church's grip on women's lives, and the political manipulations of the new state. The novel won the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction and the Costa Novel Award, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
About the Author
Sebastian Barry is an Irish novelist, playwright, and poet widely regarded as one of Ireland's foremost living writers. Born in Dublin in 1955, he studied at Trinity College Dublin and has written across forms, producing an interconnected body of fiction and drama that revisits Irish history through the lives of fictional families — most notably the Dunne and McNulty clans. His novels include The Secret Scripture (2008), winner of the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction and shortlisted for the Booker Prize; On Canaan's Side (2012), which won the Walter Scott Prize; Days Without End (2016), which also won the Walter Scott Prize (making him the only author to win that prize twice), the Costa Novel Award, and the Walter Scott Prize; and A Long Long Way (2005) and The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty (1998). Read more →
