Pat Barker – författare

A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF THE 21ST CENTURY'Chilling, powerful, audacious' The Times'Magnificent. You are in the hands of a writer at the height of her powers' Evening StandardThere was a woman at the heart of the Trojan War whose voice has been silent - until now. Discover the greatest Greek myth of all - retold by the witness that history forgot . . .Briseis was a queen until her city was destroyed. Now she is a slave to the man who butchered her husband and brothers. Trapped in a world defined by men, can she survive to become the author of her own story?THE PERFECT GIFT FOR FANS OF MADELINE MILLER'S CIRCE AND THE SONG OF ACHILLES!*Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction and the Costa Novel Award*Pat Barker continues her extraordinary retelling of one of our greatest myths in The Women of Troy.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Following her bestselling, critically acclaimed The Silence of the Girls, Pat Barker continues her extraordinary retelling of one of our greatest myths.'Myth for a MeToo age. Pat Barker returns to Homer in this gory but unexpectedly uplifting novel' Sunday TimesTroy has fallen. The Greeks have won their bitter war. They can return home as victors - all they need is a good wind to lift their sails. But the wind has vanished, the seas becalmed by vengeful gods, and so the warriors remain in limbo - camped in the shadow of the city they destroyed, kept company by the women they stole from it.The women of Troy.Helen - poor Helen. All that beauty, all that grace - and she was just a mouldy old bone for feral dogs to fight over.Cassandra, who has learned not to be too attached to her own prophecies. They have only ever been believed when she can get a man to deliver them.Stubborn Amina, with her gaze still fixed on the ruined towers of Troy, determined to avenge the slaughter of her king.Hecuba, howling and clawing her cheeks on the silent shore, as if she could make her cries heard in the gloomy halls of Hades. As if she could wake the dead.And Briseis, carrying her future in her womb: the unborn child of the dead hero Achilles. Once again caught up in the disputes of violent men. Once again faced with the chance to shape history.Masterful and enduringly resonant, ambitious and intimate, The Women of Troy continues Pat Barker's extraordinary retelling of one of our greatest classical myths, following on from the critically acclaimed The Silence of the Girls.'Readers turn to Barker's novels for their plain truths and clear-eyed sense of our history and creation stories. But the sombre clarity of her writing is offset by a luminous wisdom' Sunday Times 'The Women Of Troy's immediate beauty is its accessibility and Barker's precise, elegant writing' Metro'Barker has always looked on the world with the combination of a cold eye and a sympathetic understanding. Her characterisation is sharp, her sympathy deep' ipaper

The exhilarating follow-up to Pat Barker's The Women of Troy and The Silence of the Girls'Brilliant, masterful . . . Barker strips away the glittering armour of myth' Guardian After ten blood-filled years, the war is over. Troy lies in smoking ruins as the victorious Greeks fill their ships with the spoils of battle.Alongside the treasures looted are the many Trojan women captured by the Greeks – among them the legendary prophetess Cassandra, and her watchful maid, Ritsa. Enslaved as concubine – war-wife – to King Agamemnon, Cassandra is plagued by visions of his death – and her own – while Ritsa is forced to bear witness to both Cassandra’s frenzies and the horrors to come.Meanwhile, awaiting the fleet’s return is Queen Clytemnestra, vengeful wife of Agamemnon. Heart-shattered by her husband’s choice to sacrifice their eldest daughter to the gods in exchange for a fair wind to Troy, she has spent this long decade plotting retribution, in a palace haunted by child-ghosts.As one wife journeys toward the other, united by the vision of Agamemnon’s death, one thing is certain: this long-awaited homecoming will change everyone’s fates forever.'The queen of literary historical fiction, Barker is an unflinching guide for a trip across ancient Greece' National Geographic'Astonishingly fresh . . . Pat Barker is one of the finest novelists working today' Alice Winn, author of In MemoriamSHORTLISTED FOR THE ANGLO-HELLENIC LEAGUE RUNCIMAN AWARD 2025

The modern classic of contemporary war fiction from Women's Prize-shortlisted author of The Silence of the Girls, Regeneration is a powerfully moving portrait of the deep legacy of human trauma in the First World War. RECOMMENDED BY RICHARD OSMANCraiglockhart War Hospital, Scotland, 1917, and army psychiatrist William Rivers is treating shell-shocked soldiers. Under his care are the poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, as well as mute Billy Prior, who is only able to communicate by means of pencil and paper. Rivers's job is to make the men in his charge healthy enough to fight. Yet the closer he gets to mending his patients' minds the harder becomes every decision to send them back to the horrors of the front. Pat Barker's Regeneration is the classic exploration of how the traumas of war brutalised a generation of young men.'Brilliant, intense and subtle' Peter Kemp, Sunday Times'One of the strongest and most interesting novelists of her generation' Guardian'Unforgettable' Sunday TelegraphThe Regeneration trilogy:RegenerationThe Eye in the DoorThe Ghost Road

The masterful second novel in Pat Barker's classic 'Regeneration' trilogy - from the Booker Prize-winning and Women's Prize-shortlisted author of The Silence of the GirlsWINNER OF THE 1993 GUARDIAN FICTION PRIZE'Spellbinding and startlingly original' Sunday Telegraph'Gripping, moving, profoundly intelligent' Independent on Sunday'A new vision of what the First World War did to human beings, male and female, soldiers and civilians' A. S. Byatt, Daily TelegraphLondon, 1918. Billy Prior is working for Intelligence in the Ministry of Munitions. But his private encounters with women and men - pacifists, objectors, homosexuals - conflict with his duties as a soldier, and it is not long before his sense of himself fragments and breaks down. Forced to consult the man who helped him before - army psychiatrist William Rivers - Prior must confront his inability to be the dutiful soldier his superiors wish him to be. The Eye in the Door is a heart-rending study of the contradictions of war and of those forced to live through it.The Regeneration Trilogy:RegenerationThe Eye in the DoorThe Ghost Road

The Booker Prize-winning final novel in Pat Barker's classic 'Regeneration' trilogy - from the acclaimed author of The Silence of the Girls'An extraordinary tour de force. One of the few real masterpieces of late twentieth-century British fiction' Jonathan Coe'Powerful, deeply moving... A triumph' Sunday Times'Harrowing, original, unforgettable' Independent1918, the closing months of the war. Army psychiatrist William Rivers is increasingly concerned for the men who have been in his care - particularly Billy Prior, who is about to return to combat in France with young poet Wilfred Owen. As Rivers tries to make sense of what, if anything, he has done to help these injured men, Prior and Owen await the final battles in a war that has decimated a generation. The Ghost Road is a vivid and unforgettable account of the devastating final months of the First World War.The Regeneration Trilogy:RegenerationThe Eye in the DoorThe Ghost Road

From the Booker Prize-winning and Women's Prize-shortlisted author of The Silence of the Girls The second novel in Pat Barker's acclaimed 'Life Class' trilogy - a dark and compelling examination of desire, friendship and the horror of war, from one of our greatest writers on war and the human heart'Heart-rending... Toby's Room anatomises a world where extreme emotion shatters the boundaries of identity, behaviour, gender' Independent'Once again Barker skilfully moves between past and present, seamlessly weaving fact and fiction into a gripping narrative' Sunday TelegraphWhen Toby is reported 'Missing, Believed Killed', another secret casts a lengthening shadow over Elinor's world: how exactly did Toby die - and why? Elinor determines to uncover the truth. Only then can she finally close the door to Toby's room. Moving from the Slade School of Art to Queen Mary's Hospital, where surgery and art intersect in the rebuilding of the shattered faces of the wounded, Toby's Room is a riveting drama of identity, damage, intimacy and loss.The Life Class trilogy:Life ClassToby's RoomNoonday

THE EXHILARATING FOLLOW-UP TO PAT BARKER'S THE WOMEN OF TROY AND THE SILENCE OF THE GIRLSAfter ten blood-filled years, the war is over. Troy lies in smoking ruins as the victorious Greeks fill their ships with the spoils of battle.Alongside the treasures looted are the many Trojan women captured by the Greeks – among them the legendary prophetess Cassandra, and her watchful maid, Ritsa. Enslaved as concubine – war-wife – to King Agamemnon, Cassandra is plagued by visions of his death – and her own – while Ritsa is forced to bear witness to both Cassandra’s frenzies and the horrors to come.Meanwhile, awaiting the fleet’s return is Queen Clytemnestra, vengeful wife of Agamemnon. Heart-shattered by her husband’s choice to sacrifice their eldest daughter to the gods in exchange for a fair wind to Troy, she has spent this long decade plotting retribution, in a palace haunted by child-ghosts.As one wife journeys toward the other, united by the vision of Agamemnon’s death, one thing is certain: this long-awaited homecoming will change everyone’s fates forever.‘The queen of literary historical fiction, Barker is an unflinching guide for a trip across ancient Greece’ National Geographic‘In her thrilling retelling of the stories of Cassandra and Clytemnestra, Barker conjures up a world stained by the grief of mothers and daughters. Agamemnon’s palace is the stuff of nightmares, a world of suspicion and fear, plagued by the ghosts of innocents’ Paula Hawkins'You go to her for plain truths, a driving storyline and a clear eye, steadily facing the history of our world' GuardianSHORTLISTED FOR THE ANGLO-HELLENIC LEAGUE RUNCIMAN AWARD 2025Instant Sunday Times bestseller, August 2024

From the Booker Prize-winning and Women's Prize-shortlisted author of The Silence of the Girls The final novel in Pat Barker's acclaimed 'Life Class' trilogy - an unforgettable story of art and war, from one of our greatest writers on war and the human heart'Bold, hard-hitting, unforgettable, with luminous and unsparing insight' Independent on Sunday'Barker's command of detail and gift for metaphor are as sharp as ever... Noonday is in the first rank' Mail on Sunday'[There is] no end to her talent in describing how conflicts rupture the soul' Arifa Akbar, IndependentLondon, the Blitz, autumn 1940. As the bombs fall on the blacked-out city, ambulance driver Elinor Brooke races from bomb sites to hospitals trying to save the lives of injured survivors, working alongside former friend Kit Neville, while her husband Paul works as an air-raid warden. As the bombing intensifies, the constant risk of death makes all three of them reach out for quick consolation. Old loves and obsessions re-surface until Elinor is brought face to face with an almost impossible choice. Writing about the Second World War for the first time, Pat Barker brings the besieged and haunted city of London into electrifying life.The Life Class trilogy:Life ClassToby's RoomNoonday

The Booker Prize-winning modern classic of contemporary war fiction from the Women's Prize-shortlisted author of The Silence of the GirlsRecommended by Richard Osman 'One of the few real masterpieces of late twentieth-century British fiction' Jonathan Coe 'Original, delicate and unforgettable' Independent'A new vision of what the First World War did to human beings, male and female, soldiers and civilians. Constantly surprising and formally superb' A. S. Byatt, Daily Telegraph1917, Scotland. At Craiglockhart War Hospital in Scotland, army psychiatrist William Rivers treats shell-shocked soldiers before sending them back to the front. In his care are poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, and Billy Prior, who is only able to communicate by means of pencil and paper. . .Regeneration, The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road follow the stories of these men until the last months of the war. Widely acclaimed and admired, Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy paints with moving detail the far-reaching consequences of a conflict which decimated a generation. The Regeneration trilogy:RegenerationThe Eye in the DoorThe Ghost Road

The devastating modern classic of contemporary war fiction from Women's Prize-shortlisted author of The Silence of the GirlsRegeneration is the first novel in Pat Barker's Booker Prize-winning Regeneration trilogy - a powerfully moving portrait of the deep legacy of human trauma in the First World War'Brilliant, intense and subtle' Peter Kemp, Sunday Times'One of the strongest and most interesting novelists of her generation' Guardian 'Unforgettable' Sunday TelegraphCraiglockhart War Hospital, Scotland, 1917, and army psychiatrist William Rivers is treating shell-shocked soldiers. Under his care are the poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, as well as mute Billy Prior, who is only able to communicate by means of pencil and paper. Rivers's job is to make the men in his charge healthy enough to fight. Yet the closer he gets to mending his patients' minds the harder becomes every decision to send them back to the horrors of the front. Pat Barker's Regeneration is the classic exploration of how the traumas of war brutalised a generation of young men.The Regeneration trilogy:RegenerationThe Eye in the DoorThe Ghost Road

From the Booker Prize-winning and Women's Prize-shortlisted author of The Silence of the Girls The first novel in Pat Barker's acclaimed 'Life Class' trilogy - an unforgettable story of art and war, from one of our greatest writers on war and the human heart'Triumphant, inspiring, shattering' The Times'Barker writes as brilliantly as ever... With great tenderness and insight she conveys a wartime world turned upside down' Independent on Sunday'Masterly, gripping' Penelope Lively'Extraordinarily powerful' Sunday Telegraph Spring, 1914. The students at the Slade School of Art gather in Henry Tonks's studio for his life-drawing class. But for Paul Tarrant the class is troubling, underscoring his own uncertainty about making a mark on the world. When war breaks out and the army won't take Paul, he enlists in the Belgian Red Cross just as he and fellow student Elinor Brooke admit their feelings for one another. Amidst the devastation in Ypres, Paul comes to see the world anew - but have his experiences changed him completely?The Life Class trilogy:Life ClassToby's RoomNoonday

'Vivid, bawdy and bitter' THE TIMES 'A first-rate first novel . . . pungent, raunchy dialogue . . . passages of fine understated wit' IVAN GOLD, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW Pat Barker's first novel shows the women of Union Street, young and old, meeting the harsh challeges of poverty and survival in a precarious world.There's Kelly, at eleven, neglected and independent, dealing with a squalid rape; Dinah, knocking on sixty and still on the game; Joanne, not yet twenty, not yet married and already pregnant. Old Alice is welcoming her impending death whilst Muriel helplessly watches the decline of her stoical husband.And linking them all, watching over them all, mother to half the street, is fiery, indomitable Iris.

'Blow Your House Down is swift, spare and utterly absorbing - you'll probably read it, as I did, in one tense sitting' NEW YORK TIMES 'A courageous and disturbing novel' ELIZABETH WARD, WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD 'Despite its black humour, it is a deeply political book' BELINDA WEBB, GUARDIAN A serial killer stalks prostitutes with profound and unexpected consequences in this riveting novel from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Ghost Road. A city and its people are in the grip of a killer who is roaming the northern city, singling out prostitutes. The face of his latest victim stares out from every newspaper and billboard, haunting the women who walk the streets. But life and work go on. Brenda, with three children, can't afford to give up while Audrey, now in her forties, desperately goes on 'working the cars'.And then, when another woman is savagely murdered, Jean, her lover, takes desperate measures . . .

'A modern-day masterpiece' SUNDAY TIMES'The third, Liza's England, in many ways the most moving of the trilogy, tracks the life of a northern working-class woman from the beginning of the century to well into Thatcher's reign, exploding feminist myths as readily as political ones' BELINDA WEBB, GUARDIAN Dauntless Liza Jarrett, born at the dawn of the twentieth century, is now in her eighties, frail and facing eviction with her cantankerous parrot Nelson, when she is visited by Stephen, a young gay social worker. As she learns to trust him, she recalls her life - her embittered, exhausted mother, her shell-shocked spiritualist husband, her beloved son and chaotic daugter. Their friendship, deepening with the unfolding of their stories, comes to sustain Liza through her last battle and brings new courage to Stephen.