Secrets and lives

Sebastian Barry may be the most exhilarating prose stylist in Irish fiction. His new book weaves together strands from Ireland's past -- and his own.

 

June 20, 2008 | Vladimir Nabokov once complained that English translations of his favorite Russian writer were so flat and colorless that "None but an Irishman should ever try tackling Gogol." I'd nominate Sebastian Barry, the most exhilarating prose stylist in Irish fiction -- which just about makes him, by definition, the best prose writer in the English language.

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