Barry Unsworth facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Barry Unsworth
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| Born | 10 August 1930 Wingate, County Durham, England |
| Died | 4 June 2012 (aged 81) Perugia, Umbria, Italy |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Period | 1966–2012 |
| Genre | Novel |
| Subject | Historical fiction |
| Notable works | Sacred Hunger |
| Notable awards | Booker Prize 1992 |
Barry Unsworth (born August 10, 1930 – died June 4, 2012) was an English writer. He was famous for his historical novels, which are stories set in the past. He wrote 17 novels during his life. He was nominated for the important Booker Prize three times and won it once in 1992 for his book Sacred Hunger.
Contents
About Barry Unsworth
Early Life and Education
Barry Unsworth was born on August 10, 1930, in Wingate, a small mining village in County Durham, England. His family had worked in the mines for generations. His father started working in the mines when he was just 12 years old. Usually, Barry would have followed this path too.
However, his father traveled to the United States for a few years when he was 19. When he came back to Britain, he started working in the insurance business. This helped his family move up and out of the mining industry. Barry Unsworth later said that his father "rescued my brother and me from that long chain of continuity that happens in mining villages."
Barry Unsworth went to the University of Manchester and graduated in 1951. After that, he lived in France for a year, teaching English.
Travels and Inspiration
In the 1960s, Unsworth traveled a lot in Greece and Turkey. He even taught at the University of Athens and the University of Istanbul. These experiences greatly inspired his writing. For example, his novels The Rage of the Vulture and Pascali's Island are set in the Ottoman Empire around the late 1800s. His second novel, The Greeks Have a Word For It, also came from his time teaching in Athens.
Later in his life, he was a visiting professor at the University of Iowa in 1999. In 2004, he taught literature and creative writing at Kenyon College in Ohio.
Later Life and Death
In his final years, Barry Unsworth lived in Perugia, a city in Italy, with his second wife. His novel After Hannibal is a fictional story about his experiences settling in the Italian countryside.
Unsworth passed away in Perugia, Italy, in 2012, at the age of 81. He died on the same day as another famous writer, Ray Bradbury. A newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, noted that "Mr. Bradbury invented the future; Mr. Unsworth invented the past."
His Books and Stories
Starting as a Writer
Barry Unsworth published his first novel, The Partnership, in 1966 when he was 36 years old. He mentioned that his early novels, like The Hide and Mooncranker's Gift, had a very detailed and lively writing style. He said he enjoyed using language in a playful way. Mooncranker's Gift (1973) won the Heinemann Award. Other books he wrote include Stone Virgin (1985) and Losing Nelson (1999). He was influenced by American writers like Eudora Welty, William Faulkner, and Carson McCullers.
Shift to Historical Fiction
Unsworth started writing historical fiction with his sixth novel, Pascali's Island (1980). This book was the first of his novels to be nominated for the Booker Prize. Pascali's Island takes place on an island in the Aegean Sea during the final years of the Ottoman Empire.
Unsworth explained that living outside Britain made him turn to the past for his stories. He felt that writing about history allowed him to focus on deeper human experiences. He saw historical settings as a "distant mirror" to understand people then and now. Pascali's Island was made into a film in 1988, starring Charles Dance, Helen Mirren, and Ben Kingsley.
Notable Works
Morality Play
Morality Play was nominated for the Booker Prize in 1995. It is a mystery story set in England in the 1300s. It follows a group of traveling actors who perform Bible plays and get involved in solving a murder. This novel was also made into a film called The Reckoning in 2003.
Sacred Hunger
Sacred Hunger (1992) is one of Unsworth's most famous books. It won the Booker Prize in 1992, sharing the award with Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient. Many people consider it his best work.
The story is set in the mid-1700s and focuses on a ship called the Liverpool Merchant. This ship was part of the triangular trade, a major shipping route at the time. The main idea of the novel is about greed. It explores how a strong desire for profit can lead to terrible actions. The "sacred hunger" in the title refers to this powerful drive for money. The book has many characters and mixes sad and funny moments.
The Quality of Mercy
A sequel to Sacred Hunger, called The Quality of Mercy, was published in 2011. This was the last book Barry Unsworth wrote.
Sugar and Rum
Sugar and Rum (1988) is a novel set in modern-day Liverpool. It's about a writer who is trying to write a book about the slave trade in Liverpool but is having trouble. Unsworth wrote this novel to help him overcome his own writer's block while he was working on Sacred Hunger.
Writing Style
Barry Unsworth's writing style focused on capturing the true feeling of a historical period, rather than just small details. He once said, "I don't really care how many buttons someone had on his waistcoat. It would be good to get it right, but what really matters is trying to get hold of the spirit of the age, what it was like to be alive in that age." He wanted to show what it felt like to be an ordinary person in the past.
As he got older, Unsworth felt his writing became more precise. He tried to create warmth and color in his stories by choosing his words very carefully. He found writing novels to be a challenging and demanding task.
Awards and Honours
- 1973 Heinemann Award, for Mooncranker's Gift
- 1980 Booker Prize, shortlisted for Pascali's Island
- 1992 Booker Prize, co-winner for Sacred Hunger
- 1995 Booker Prize, shortlisted for Morality Play
- 2006 Booker Prize, longlisted for The Ruby in Her Navel
- 2012 Walter Scott Prize, shortlisted for The Quality of Mercy
List of Works
- Novels
- The Partnership (1966)
- The Greeks Have a Word For It (1967)
- The Hide (1970)
- Mooncranker's Gift (1973)
- The Big Day (1976)
- Pascali's Island (1980) (also published as The Idol Hunter in the US)
- The Rage of the Vulture (1982)
- Stone Virgin (1985)
- Sugar and Rum (1988)
- Sacred Hunger (1992)
- Morality Play (1995)
- After Hannibal (1996)
- Losing Nelson (1999)
- The Songs of the Kings (2002)
- The Ruby in Her Navel (2006)
- Land of Marvels (2009)
- The Quality of Mercy (2011)
- Nonfiction
- Crete (2004)
