Barry Unsworth
Barry Unsworth was a prominent British author celebrated for revitalizing the historical novel genre. Born in 1930 in Durham, England, he had a diverse educational and professional background, including time spent in the British Army and various teaching positions across Europe, particularly in Greece and Turkey. His writing often blends historical and contemporary themes, using the past to explore modern moral and political issues. Unsworth's notable works include "Mooncranker's Gift," which earned him the Royal Society of Literature's Heinemann Award, and "Sacred Hunger," which won the Booker Prize in 1992. He was known for his deep sense of place, drawing inspiration from his experiences in countries like Greece, Turkey, and Italy. Throughout his career, Unsworth received several accolades, including a Litt.D. from Manchester University and fellowship at the Royal Society of Literature. Despite personal challenges, including a tumultuous marriage and disillusionment with British politics, his literary contributions have left a lasting impact on the field of historical fiction.
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Barry Unsworth
Author
- Born: August 10, 1930
- Birthplace: Durham, England
- Died: June 4, 2012
Biography
Barry Unsworth is widely recognized for his contributions to revitalizing the British historical novel, combining historical and contemporary perspectives to create engaging and stylistically original novels that use history to shed light on contemporary issues of morality and politics. Unsworth was born in Durham, England, in 1930, the son of a coal miner turned insurance salesman. He attended Stockton-on-Tees Grammar School and graduated with a B.A. in English with honors from the University of Manchester in 1951. After graduation, he spent two years in the British army’s Royal Corps of Signals, attaining the rank of second lieutenant.
Unsworth married Valerie Irene Moor in 1959, and in the first year of their marriage he lectured at Norwood Technical College in London. In 1961, he and Valerie moved to Greece, where they spent three years at the University of Athens while Unsworth was a lecturer in English for the British Council. He returned to Norwood for two additional years before the council sent him to the University of Istanbul in Turkey.
Unsworth and his family returned to England in 1970, settling in Cambridge, where Unsworth sporadically taught English to nonnative speakers at the Lennox Cook School of English while pursuing his writing. The teaching experience was unpleasant but provided source material for his novel, The Big Day. In 1974, he received the Royal Society of Literature’s Heinemann Award for his novel Mooncranker’s Gift. After this award and that book’s strong critical reception, Unsworth began receiving more prestigious academic honors and appointments. He wrote his only television script, The Stick Insect, for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in 1975. In the 1978-1979 academic year, he was an Arts Council Creative Writing Fellow at Charlotte Mason College in Ambleside, Cumbria, England.
Although Unsworth’s fiction is historical in setting, his personal familiarity with exotic locales influences his writing and gives it a strong sense of place. Several of his novels are set in Greece, Turkey, and Italy, the three countries other than England where he has spent the most time. He traveled frequently to Venice, Italy, in the early 1980’s while researching the novel Stone Virgin. He stayed at home in England during the mid-1980’s, serving as the Northern Arts Literary Fellow at the Universities of Durham and Newcastle during the 1983-1984 academic year and then spending a year as writer-in-residence at Liverpool University.
In the late 1980’s, his marriage disintegrated and his disillusionment with Margaret Thatcher-era British politics increased. He moved to Scandinavia, living in Sweden and Finland. While there, he taught at Lund University in Sweden and completed the novel Sacred Hunger, which shared the 1992 Booker Prize with Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient. After its publication, Unsworth moved to Umbria, Italy, where he remained except for serving as a faculty member at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1999.
Unsworth’s novel, Morality Play, was short-listed for the Booker Prize, and in 1998, he received a Litt.D. from Manchester University. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Unsworth and his wife had three children: Madeleine, Tania, and Thomasina.