John Banville is a winner of the "Guardian" Fiction Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the GPA Book Award, and has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

John Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. His first book, Long Lankin, was published in 1970. His other books are Nightspawn , Birchwood, Doctor Copernicus (which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1976), Kepler (which was awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1981), The Newton Letter (which was filmed for Channel 4), Mefisto, The Book of Evidence (shortlisted for the 1989 Booker Prize and winner of the 1989 Guinness Peat Aviation Award), Athena, The Untouchable, Eclipse , Shroud and The Sea. He has received a literary award from the Lannan Foundation. He lives in Dublin.