John Banville to teach and give readings at UCC this academic year. Photograph: Irish Times

The internationally-renowned writer John Banville will be a Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at UCC for the coming academic year. He will join the School of English and Digital Humanities, where he will contribute to undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in creative writing and give two public readings.

John Banville’s appointment is supported by an anonymous philanthropic donation to UCC.

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. https://www.fantasticfiction.com/b/john-banville/

He writes detective fiction under the pen name of Benjamin Black.  His work in this genre includes the Quirke series, the first three books of which, Christine Falls, The Silver Swan and Elegy for April,  were televised by the BBC, and The Black-Eyed Blonde, a Philip Marlowe novel commissioned by the Raymond Chandler estate.

His many accolades include the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Austrian State Prize for European Literature, the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature, and the Ordine della Stella d’Italia.

Banville will join the 2019 Frank O’Connor International  Fellow, the British novelist and non-fiction writer, Sara Maitland, – https://www.scottishbooktrust.com/authors/sara-maitland/  – and this year’s incoming  Arts Council/UCC Writer-in-Residence, Danny Denton,  – https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/a-grim-dystopian-ireland-that-is-all-too-believable-1.3360182 – who are also on our creative writing team for 2019/20.