Old God’s Time, Sebastian Barry’s ninth novel is getting incredible reviews, in the opening paragraph of The Atlantic’s April edition, Adam Begley writes “Reading his novels is like braving Irish weather: You’re chilled and drenched and dazzled and baked in buffeting succession.”


This seems a pretty good description of the gamut of emotions you run through when reading Barry. It is said that Freud claimed that the Irish couldn’t be psychoanalysed and I have thought about this a lot; if the point of analysis is to be able to live with ambivalence, I think the Irish generally do that already; we can be devout and superstitious, desperate to get away from home, but always long to be ‘home’, happy and sad simultaneously. We are a nation that sits, not always comfortably, in ambivalence and Barry captures that ability perfectly in his novels - the moments of jouissance within tragedy.


As a poet and playwright, it is no surprise that his writing is lyrical, poetic, suffused with the details that allow you to ‘hear’ the characters; but what stuns me, is that as a very ‘literary’ writer, technically excellent with sophisticated themes and thoughtful nuance, he is also incredibly readable and accessible.
Winner of the James Tait Memorial Prize, twice winner of the Costa Prize in 2008 and 2017, Laureate for Irish Fiction 2019-2021, there is no doubt that Old God’s Time will be received well critically, but what is really wonderful, is that it will be devoured by readers.


What is the first book you bought yourself?
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift.


If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?
Stop worrying about EVERYTHING.


Did publishing your first book change your writing process?
No, not at all.


What were you most wrong about when you imagined being a writer?
I think I knew only too well it might be difficult.


Which 3 books do you think everyone should read?

  1. Middlemarch by George Eliot.
  2. There are Little Kingdoms by Kevin Barry.
  3. The Accidental by Ali Smith.

 

Do you have a favourite book to gift and if so, what is it?
Netherland by Joseph O’Neill.


What song always gets you on the dance floor?
Let’s Dance by David Bowie.

Tea or Coffee?
Herbal tea.

Do you Google yourself?
Yes.

Why do you love Chapters?!

It’s the pride of Parnell Street.