Book Description: Sebastian Barry (born July 5, 1955) is an Irish playwright, novelist, and poet. He has been shortlisted twice for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction and has won the 2008 Costa Book of the Year.
Barry's work in fiction came to the fore during the 1990s. His novel A Long Long Way was shortlisted for the 2005 Man Booker Prize, and was selected for Dublin's 2007 One City One Book event. [3] The novel tells the story of Willie Dunne, a young recruit to the Royal Dublin Fusiliers during the First World War. It brings to life the divided loyalties that many Irish soldiers felt at the time following the Easter Rising in 1916. [Willie Dunne, son of the fictional Thomas Dunne, first appears as a minor but important character in "The Steward of Christendom."]