Irish author Sebastian Barry won the 2008 Costa Book of the Year award for The Secret Scripture, a moving account of one woman's stolen life and her journey to reclaim the past.
The novel focuses on the story of Roseanne McNulty. Roseanne, perhaps nearing her 100th birthday - no one is quite sure - faces an uncertain future, as the Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital where she's spent the best part of her adult life prepares for closure. Over the weeks leading up to this upheaval, she talks often with her psychiatrist, Dr Grene. Told through their respective journals, the story that emerges is at once shocking and deeply beautiful. Refracted through the haze of memory and retelling, Roseanne's story becomes an alternative, secret, history of Ireland.
Sebastian Barry is a playwright and novelist who was born in Dublin in 1955. His novels include The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty (1998), Annie Dunne (2002) and A Long Long Way (2005), which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Dublin International Impac Prize. He has won many awards including the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Prize, the London Critics Circle Award and the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Prize. His plays include The Steward of Christendom (1995), Our Lady of Sligo (1998) and The Pride of Parnell Street (2007).
What the judges said:
Sebastian Barry has created one of the great narrative voices in contemporary fiction in The Secret Scripture. It is a book of great brilliance, powerfully and beautifully written.
The Secret Scripture, published by Faber and Faber, is the ninth novel to take the overall prize. The last time Book of the Year was won by the Novel category was in 2007, by A. L. Kennedy with Day.