Pat Barker
Pat Barker’s powerful early novels Union Street (Virago) and Blow Your House Down (Virago) earned her considerable praise. Hard-hitting and unsentimental, they are strong and memorable books celebrating the individuality of the lives of ‘ordinary’ women. The books have bleak backgrounds but are energetic and often uplifting without softening the circumstances that her characters have to face. This could serve as a bare description of her remarkable Regeneration trilogy, a stunning and memorable series of novels about the impact of the First World War on a variety of characters but notably on Billy Prior, a rebel in many ways. These great novels look at war in a clear eyed way, the wide background of the war is never lost but the narrative focuses on the details of daily life, managing to bring questions of class, sexuality and creation into the chaos of war.
The violence of the First World War coloured the backdrop of Pat Barker’s next novel Another World which looked at the effects of violence on following generations and this theme is picked up again in Pat Barker’s most recent novel Border Crossing. Our interview with the author explores her abiding interest in the issues of violence, ideals of innocence and goodness, class and sexuality.
Pat Barker was born in Thornaby-on-Tees in 1943. She was educated at the London School of Economics and has been a teacher of history and politics. Her books include Union Street (1982), winner of the 1983 Fawcett Prize, which has been filmed as “Stanley and Iris”; Blow Your House Down (1984); Liza’s England (1986), formerly The Century’s Daughter, The Man Who Wasn’t There (1989); the highly acclaimed Regeneration trilogy, comprising Regeneration, The Eye in The Door, winner of the 1993 Guardian Fiction Prize, and The Ghost Road, winner of the 1995 Booker Prize for Fiction and Another World. Her latest novel is Life Class.
Pat Barker is married and lives in Durham.