John Boyne is one of the most successful and critically acclaimed novelists of his generation. In a career spanning more than 30 years, he has published 15 novels for adults, 6 novels for younger readers, and a short story collection.
His most famous book, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, is a modern classic and, globally, the biggest selling novel by an Irish writer since records began. It was a New York Times No.1 Bestseller, and adapted for film, theatre, opera, and ballet, selling more than 11 million copies worldwide. It is used in schools on every continent to introduce young readers to their study of the Holocaust.
Among his many international bestsellers are The Heart’s Invisible Furies, A Ladder to the Sky, All the Broken Places, and My Brother’s Name is Jessica, a novel about a transgender teenager, which has won international awards for its compassionate treatment of an often contentious subject.
His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Observer, The Times Literary Supplement, The Irish Times, and in dozens of international newspapers and magazines.
He has won 4 Irish Book Awards, the Hennessy Literary ‘Hall of Fame’ Award, and many international literary prizes, including the Qué Leer Award for Novel of the Year in Spain and the Gustav Heinemann Peace Prize in Germany for his work on Holocaust Education. In 2015, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of East Anglia.
His novels are published in 60 languages, making him the most globally translated Irish novelist of all time.
In late 2022, John was shortlisted for the Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction for The Echo Chamber, and won Author of the Year for All the Broken Places at the Irish Book Awards.
In November 2023, John published the first of a four novella sequence, Water (Nov ’23), which will be followed by Earth (May ’24), Fire (Nov ’24), and Air (May ’25). Together, the sequence will be titled The Elements.
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