Where to start with Sebastian Barry

Irish novelist, born 1955. Won the Costa Novel Award in 2008 and 2016 and the Walter Scott Prize in 2012 and 2017.

Best Sebastian Barry book to start with: The Secret Scripture (2008), on 2 of the 14 lists it could have made.

Days Without End makes the best introduction to Barry. It won the Costa Novel Award in 2016 and the Walter Scott Prize in 2017, and it is narrated in a distinctive voice by an Irishman who becomes a soldier in 19th-century America. The voice takes a few pages to settle, and after that it carries you.

The Secret Scripture won the Costa in 2008 and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize that year. It is told by an elderly woman in an Irish hospital, and it is the book to choose if you like language that leans towards poetry. On Canaan’s Side, which won the Walter Scott Prize in 2012, is narrated by an old Irish woman in America, looking back over her life.

A Long Long Way was shortlisted for the Booker in 2005 and follows a young Irish soldier in the First World War. It is the grimmest of the four and the most direct, so read it when you want a war novel. It is also the earliest, if you like to take an author in order.