Almanac of Story Tellers: Pat Barker

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of  May 8th

 ___________________________________________________________________________

    It is the 128th day of the year, leaving 237 days remaining in 2022.

    On this date in 1943, the British novelist Pat Barker was born.

   

    She tells her stories directly, using blunt and plain spoken language. "You go to her for plain truths, a driving story line, and a clear eye steadily facing the history of our world," the British newspaper The Guardian said about her style.

    Barker, who has written 15 novels, also refuses to be typecast. She has written about women dealing with trauma and recovery, working-class women in poverty, and men recovering from the brutality of war.

     She has retold the stories of the relationships between the men and women of ancient Greece, during the times of gods and goddesses. In those stories and others, she has rejected the notion that women are always less aggressive and kinder and more caring than men. 

    Barker is best known for her three novels about men dealing with World War I and its aftermath. She started writing the trilogy partly in homage to her step-grandfather, who was wounded in the war but kept silent about his experiences. The books, Regeneration, The Eye in the Door, and The Ghost Road, were universally praised, with the final installment winning the Booker Prize in 1995.

    She was shortlisted for the Women's Prize in Fiction for The Silence of the Girls, a retelling of the story of The Iliad from the perspective of Briseis, the wife of King Mynes, who was abducted and given as a gift to Archilles.

    Her most recent book, out last year, is a sequel, The Women of Troy.