In a remarkably candid conversation ahead of his appearance at London’s Queen’s Park book festival, the celebrated Irish novelist Sebastian Barry has peeled back the layers of his seven decades with a honesty that startles and illuminates. The double Costa Book of the Year winner, shortlisted twice for the Booker Prize, will tomorrow discuss his latest novel, The Newer World — but in a wide-ranging Q&A, the 71-year-old turned the spotlight firmly on himself, offering a portrait of a man at once peculiar, intense, and deeply awkward, yet capable of a tenderness that cuts through his own self-deprecation.
From dashed dreams of rock ’n’ roll stardom to the quiet, anchoring love of his wife, Ali, Barry’s reflections form a mosaic of a life lived with fierce intellectual honesty and a willingness to confront the grotesqueries of age without flinching.
The Man Who Wanted to Be Dylan
It is perhaps the most charmingly boyish confession of the entire interview: growing up in Dublin, Sebastian Barry did not dream of literary accolades or prize shortlists. His ambition was simpler, and infinitely more rebellious — he wanted to inherit the throne of Bob Dylan. “I hoped to take over from Bob Dylan when he retired,” he admits, with a dryness that suggests he knew even then the fantasy was doomed. “But he never did.”
That unfulfilled musical yearning may have found its outlet in prose, where Barry’s lyrical, rhythm-driven sentences carry the cadence of a man who once listened to vinyl records with the intensity of a devotee. His reverence for artistic giants is well documented; he speaks of John Montague, the poet he “revered,” with the kind of deference reserved for mentors. Yet it was Montague who delivered the most cutting remark of Barry’s early career. When the young writer proudly walked into the Poetry Society in 1985 to deliver a reading, Montague looked at him and asked, “What are you doing here?” The question, delivered with the cruelty of a gatekeeper, still stings decades later — a moment Barry recalls not with bitterness, but with the wounded surprise of someone who had simply hoped to be seen.
Loves, Fears and the Weight of Self
If Barry’s relationship with the literary world has been marked by moments of exclusion, his relationship with himself is a more complex, ongoing negotiation. Asked to describe himself in three words, he does not hesitate: “Peculiar, intense, awkward.” The self-assessment is delivered without irony, and it sets the tone for an interview in which Barry refuses to flatter his own image. His greatest fear? “Running out of money or time.” The trait he most deplores in himself? “Not listening — but I am training myself.” It is the kind of answer that reveals a man perpetually in process, still trying to refine the raw material of his character.
And yet, for all his self-criticism, there is one anchor he describes with unguarded warmth: his wife, Ali. “The greatest love of my life? My wife, Ali, who is a very complete person, unlike myself.” The contrast is deliberate — Barry sees in Ali a completeness he does not claim for himself. When asked what love feels like, his answer is a cascade of contradictions: “A responsibility, a test, a chasm, a mountain, a non-harming strike of joy.” It is a definition that resists simplicity, much like the man himself.
The Uncomfortable Truths of Aging
Few topics are as unflinchingly addressed as the realities of aging. Barry does not romanticise his seventh decade. When asked what he most dislikes about his appearance, he answers bluntly: “The grotesqueries of old age.” His sex life, he says, exists “somewhere between a memory and an ambition” — a phrase that is at once funny, honest, and quietly poignant. He does not shy away from the absurdities: he mentions his snoring (“there’s an app now that lets you hear your own devastating din”) and the way he sometimes lies awake cataloguing his failings: “Am I a good person? How will I survive the next book tour?”
Yet even in these admissions, there is a kind of grace. “Getting even more old,” he says of his fear of aging, “but that’s a privilege, too.” It is a sentiment that captures the paradox of his outlook: he sees the indignities of decline, but refuses to surrender the gratitude that comes with still being here to witness them.
Regrets, Editing and the Moussaka That Defines Him
Barry’s answers on regret are characteristically nuanced. If he could edit his past, he says, it would be “ten thousand small edits,” but he accepts “the general text.” He wants to erase depressive episodes and “gross stupidities,” but acknowledges that these are part of the fabric of who he is. His most pointed apology is directed at a vulnerable boy on a school tour whom he failed to be kind to — a memory that still weighs on him, and for which he would “go back in time and be a decent friend.”
His greatest achievement, by his own account, is not a literary prize but a culinary one: “I do make a very authentic moussaka.” The statement is delivered with the same deadpan sincerity that defines much of his self-portraiture — a reminder that for Barry, authenticity is the highest virtue, whether in prose, in relationships, or in aubergine-based dishes.
Why It Matters
In an era when literary figures are often packaged in polished, inaccessible personas, Sebastian Barry’s unvarnished honesty is a rare and valuable gift. His willingness to confront the absurdities of aging, the vulnerabilities of love, and the unfinished business of his own character offers readers not just a glimpse into the mind of a great writer, but a mirror held up to our own lives. In a culture that frequently infantilises the elderly or reduces them to caricatures, Barry’s reflections remind us that wisdom is not the absence of fear, but the courage to name it — and that the greatest literature often emerges not from perfection, but from the messy, magnificent imperfection of being human.