Sebastian Barry: Tales from an Uncivil War

In his beautiful and unforgettable novel Days Without End, Sebastian Barry continued his epic examination of the Irish experience, this time in Midwest America with the story of a recently-emigrated Thomas McNulty and his lover John Cole.

Now, with the publication of A Thousand Moons, Barry takes up the story of Thomas and John’s adopted daughter Winona, a young Lakota girl, rescued following the massacre of her tribe – victims of the civil war between Union and Confederate armies. In giving this young Indigenous woman a voice, Barry expands and deepens his engagement with a group of ‘nothing people’ – overlooked by conventional histories. He also applies his extraordinary talents as a prose-writer to evoke the almost unimaginable pain of loss that Winona has endured in her short life.

A Thousand Moons is a luminous, courageous novel that lingers long in the mind and we’re delighted that Sebastian Barry joins us to discuss it with literary agent Jenny Brown.

This is a live event, with an author Q&A.