My Name Is Leon by Kit de Waal review – moving story of racial injustice
Skilfully drawn characters and emotions lend great power to this story of institutional racism in 80s Britain
February 2017
The Guardian Books podcast
Sebastian Barry on his Costa-winning novel Days Without End – books podcast
In the week Sebastian Barry picked up his second Costa book of the year award, he joins us in the studio to read from and discuss Days Without End
Costa winner Sebastian Barry: ‘My son instructed me in the magic of gay life’
Days Without End, about an Irishman who fights in the American civil war, cross-dresses and marries a man, has won the Costa prize. Do Barry’s family mind their stories being plundered?
Books blog
Sebastian Barry's second Costa win crowns a singular career
Justine Jordan
Days Without End sees the novelist venturing in to the 19th-century American west to find a tender story of ‘two wood-shavings of humanity in a rough world’
January 2017
Days Without End wins Sebastian Barry second Costa book of the year award
Irish writer becomes first novelist to win award twice, with story of a gay relationship set during founding of the US
Costa book awards deliver for baby boomer winners
Sebastian Barry, Keggie Carew, Alice Oswald and first novelist Francis Spufford all take £5,000 category prizes and go into contention for overall award
On eve of Costa awards, experts warn that top books prizes are harming fiction
The dominance of three honours in the UK can be prohibitively expensive for small publishers, and end up discouraging risk-taking on ‘difficult’ authors
December 2016
The first book interview
Susan Beale: 'Memoir doesn't get you into people's heads unfiltered'
Shortlisted for a Costa prize, The Good Guy uses fiction to explore the author’s hidden roots as a child adopted in the 60s
