It would be unfair to label John Banville a "writer's writer," because it would suggest he is not a writer easily accessible to the majority of readers. Yet, there is no doubt that Banville's work has attracted much critical opinion emphasizing the author's writerly credentials: his keenness of style, his interest in storytelling, and his commitment to novelistic technique. Such critical assessments often refer to his aesthetics, authority, and clarity as much as to his thematic interests in identity and the unstable nature of truth and knowledge. He is regarded, in that respect, as a highly conscious literary artist, valued for his serious investigation of form. He is also an entertaining writer, and he is an Irish writer.

Banville was born in Wexford and educated locally at the Christian Brothers primary school and St. Peter's College, the main diocesan secondary school. He currently lives in Dublin with his...