Pat Barker

Pat Barker’s Regeneration Trilogy – climaxing with the Booker Prize-winning The Ghost Road of 1995 – pushed her to front rank of British historical novelists. Brilliantly fusing an almost unparalleled level of veracity with a profound understanding of story and allusion, almost single-handedly Barker elevated the concept of the historical novel to the literary. Subsequently, Barker has rounded on a number of other themes, including the exploration of morality and children in the uncompromising Border Crossing and the exceptional, pan-Second World War narrative cycle of Life Class, Toby’s Room and Noonday.