John Banville - Academy of Achievement

<!doctype html> <html lang="en-US" prefix="og: http://ogp.me/ns#"> <head><script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/bundle-playback.js?v=HxkREWBo" charset="utf-8"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/wombat.js?v=txqj7nKC" charset="utf-8"></script> <script>window.RufflePlayer=window.RufflePlayer||{};window.RufflePlayer.config={"autoplay":"on","unmuteOverlay":"hidden"};</script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/ruffle/ruffle.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> __wm.init("https://web.archive.org/web"); __wm.wombat("http://www.achievement.org:80/achiever/john-banville/","20190119173032","https://web.archive.org/","web","/_static/", "1547919032"); </script> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_static/css/banner-styles.css?v=S1zqJCYt" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_static/css/iconochive.css?v=3PDvdIFv" />  <meta charset="utf-8"> <meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=edge"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="57x57" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-57x57.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="114x114" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-114x114.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="72x72" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-72x72.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="144x144" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-144x144.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="60x60" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-60x60.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="120x120" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-120x120.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="76x76" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-76x76.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="152x152" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-152x152.png"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-196x196.png" sizes="196x196"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-96x96.png" sizes="96x96"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-32x32.png" sizes="32x32"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-16x16.png" sizes="16x16"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-128.png" sizes="128x128"/> <meta name="application-name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta name="msapplication-TileColor" content="#000000"/> <meta name="msapplication-TileImage" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-144x144.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square70x70logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-70x70.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square150x150logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-150x150.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-wide310x150logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-310x150.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square310x310logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-310x310.png"/> <link href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032cs_/https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Source+Sans+Pro:400,600,400italic,600italic,700,700italic" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"> <title>John Banville - Academy of Achievement</title>  <meta name="description" content=" The Irish author John Banville has been praised as the most imaginative literary novelist writing in English today, as well as one of the language’s greatest living stylists. In addition to his perfectly crafted, lyrical prose, his novels are noted for the mordant humor of his eccentric narrators. John Banville wrote his first book of short stories at 25 and to date has published 18 novels under his own name, including the Revolutions trilogy examining the lives of Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton. As a break from his literary fiction, he has written a series of crime novels under the pen name Benjamin Black. After numerous nominations for his earlier work, Banville was awarded the English-speaking world’s highest literary honor, the Man Booker Prize, for his 2005 novel of childhood and memory, The Sea. A dramatist and screenwriter as well as a novelist, he has adapted three plays by the German dramatist Heinrich von Kleist, and written screenplays for films, including an adaptation of his novel The Sea. He has cited Henry James as one of his inspirations; his latest book, Mrs. Osmond, is a sequel to James’s The Portrait of a Lady. "/> <link rel="canonical" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-banville/"/> <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US"/> <meta property="og:type" content="article"/> <meta property="og:title" content="John Banville - Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:description" content="<div class="page" title="Page 26"> <div class="layoutArea"> <div class="column"> The Irish author John Banville has been praised as the most imaginative literary novelist writing in English today, as well as one of the language’s greatest living stylists. In addition to his perfectly crafted, lyrical prose, his novels are noted for the mordant humor of his eccentric narrators. John Banville wrote his first book of short stories at 25 and to date has published 18 novels under his own name, including the <em>Revolutions</em> trilogy examining the lives of Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton. As a break from his literary fiction, he has written a series of crime novels under the pen name Benjamin Black. After numerous nominations for his earlier work, Banville was awarded the English-speaking world’s highest literary honor, the Man Booker Prize, for his 2005 novel of childhood and memory, <em>The Sea</em>. A dramatist and screenwriter as well as a novelist, he has adapted three plays by the German dramatist Heinrich von Kleist, and written screenplays for films, including an adaptation of his novel <em>The Sea</em>. He has cited Henry James as one of his inspirations; his latest book, <em>Mrs. Osmond</em>, is a sequel to James’s <em>The Portrait of a Lady</em>. </div> </div> </div>"/> <meta property="og:url" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-banville/"/> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/banville-Feature-Image.jpg"/> <meta property="og:image:width" content="2800"/> <meta property="og:image:height" content="1120"/> <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary"/> <meta name="twitter:description" content="<div class="page" title="Page 26"> <div class="layoutArea"> <div class="column"> The Irish author John Banville has been praised as the most imaginative literary novelist writing in English today, as well as one of the language’s greatest living stylists. In addition to his perfectly crafted, lyrical prose, his novels are noted for the mordant humor of his eccentric narrators. John Banville wrote his first book of short stories at 25 and to date has published 18 novels under his own name, including the <em>Revolutions</em> trilogy examining the lives of Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton. As a break from his literary fiction, he has written a series of crime novels under the pen name Benjamin Black. After numerous nominations for his earlier work, Banville was awarded the English-speaking world’s highest literary honor, the Man Booker Prize, for his 2005 novel of childhood and memory, <em>The Sea</em>. A dramatist and screenwriter as well as a novelist, he has adapted three plays by the German dramatist Heinrich von Kleist, and written screenplays for films, including an adaptation of his novel <em>The Sea</em>. He has cited Henry James as one of his inspirations; his latest book, <em>Mrs. Osmond</em>, is a sequel to James’s <em>The Portrait of a Lady</em>. </div> </div> </div>"/> <meta name="twitter:title" content="John Banville - Academy of Achievement"/> <meta name="twitter:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/banville-Feature-Image.jpg"/> <script type="application/ld+json">{"@context":"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20190119173032\/http:\/\/schema.org","@type":"WebSite","@id":"#website","url":"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20190119173032\/http:\/\/www.achievement.org\/","name":"Academy of Achievement","alternateName":"A museum of living history","potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20190119173032\/http:\/\/www.achievement.org\/search\/{search_term_string}","query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}</script> <script 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/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/banville-Feature-Image.jpg [(max-width:992px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/03/banville-Feature-Image-1400x560.jpg"></div> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <figcaption class="feature-area__text ratio-container__text container"> <div class="feature-area__text-inner text-white"> <h2 class="serif-8 feature-area__text-subhead back"><a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever">All achievers</a></h2> <h1 class="serif-1 entry-title feature-area__text-headline">John Banville</h1> <h5 class="sans-6 feature-area__blurb">Acclaimed Irish Novelist</h5> </div> </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </header> </div>  <nav class="in-page-nav row fixedsticky"> <ul class="nav text-xs-center clearfix" role="tablist"> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link active" data-toggle="tab" href="#biography" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Biography">Biography</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#profile" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Profile">Profile</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#interview" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Interview">Interview</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#gallery" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Gallery">Gallery</a> </li> </ul> </nav> <article class="post-43360 achiever type-achiever status-publish has-post-thumbnail hentry careers-author careers-novelist"> <div class="entry-content container clearfix">  <div class="tab-content"> <div class="tab-pane fade in active" id="biography" role="tabpanel"> <section class="achiever--biography"> <div class="banner clearfix"> <div class="banner--single clearfix"> <div class="col-lg-8 col-lg-offset-2"> <div class="banner__image__container"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032/https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-it-takes/id1025864075?mt=2" target="_blank"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <img class="lazyload banner__image" data-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/WhatItTakes_banville-256-190x190.jpg" alt=""/> </figure> </a> </div> <div class="banner__text__container"> <h3 class="serif-3 banner__headline"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032/https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-it-takes/id1025864075?mt=2" target="_blank"> Listen to this achiever on <i>What It Takes</i> </a> </h3> <p class="sans-6 banner__text m-b-0"><i>What It Takes</i> is an audio podcast on iTunes produced by the American Academy of Achievement featuring intimate, revealing conversations with influential leaders in the diverse fields of endeavor: music, science and exploration, sports, film, technology, literature, the military and social justice.</p> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <header class="editorial-article__header col-md-8 col-md-offset-2 text-xs-center"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> <h3 class="serif-3 quote-marks">I love telling lies. I love making stories. I love interpreting the world. It’s why I started to write, you know, to interpret the world to myself because I didn’t understand it. I found it baffling.</h3> </header> </div> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar clearfix"> <h2 class="serif-3 p-b-1">The Nature of Perception</h2> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> December 8, 1945 </dd> </div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_43576" style="width: 616px" class="wp-caption alignright"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-43576 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/John-Banville-pictured-at-the-age-of-eight.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-43576 lazyload" alt="" width="616" height="771" data-sizes="(max-width: 616px) 100vw, 616px" data-srcset="/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/John-Banville-pictured-at-the-age-of-eight.jpg 616w, /web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/John-Banville-pictured-at-the-age-of-eight-304x380.jpg 304w, /web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/John-Banville-pictured-at-the-age-of-eight-607x760.jpg 607w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/John-Banville-pictured-at-the-age-of-eight.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">John Banville at age eight. Banville was born and raised in Wexford, Ireland. He is the youngest of three children.</figcaption></figure> <p>John Banville was born and raised in Wexford, Ireland, the youngest of three children. By Banville’s account, the household was not a literary one, but both his brother Vincent and his sister Vonnie also became writers.  As a boy, he enjoyed adventure stories, but when he was 13, his sister gave him a copy of James Joyce’s <em>Dubliners</em>.  Joyce’s gemlike tales of his native city gave the young John Banville his first intimation that compelling fiction could be drawn from the materials of everyday life.  Inspired by Joyce’s example, Banville wrote stories throughout his teens, as he progressed from a Christian Brothers primary school to St. Peter’s College secondary school in Wexford. The young Banville considered becoming a painter or an architect, but after a false start studying architecture, he decided to forgo further formal education and took a job as a clerk with Ireland’s national airline, Aer Lingus. The work held little interest for him, but he was eager to leave home and see the world, and the airline offered its employees a generous discount for air travel.  Banville took advantage of the opportunity to travel to Paris, Rome, and Athens, collecting impressions and experiences he would later use in his fiction. Traveling in the United States in the late 1960s, he was drawn to the cultural ferment of San Francisco and Berkeley, where he met Janet Dunham, a young artist studying at the University of California. Banville stayed in the San Francisco Bay area for two years. He and Dunham were married, and she returned to Ireland with him in 1969.</p> <figure id="attachment_43606" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-43606 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/first-book-series.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-43606 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1200" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/first-book-series.jpg 2280w, /web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/first-book-series-380x200.jpg 380w, /web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/first-book-series-760x400.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/first-book-series.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text"><em>Long Lankin</em> (1970), Banville’s first book, a collection of short stories, explores the passionate emotions—fear, jealousy, desire—that course beneath the surface of everyday life. <em>Nightspawn</em> (1971), John Banville’s first novel, embraces themes of freedom and betrayal and toys with an implausible plot, the stuff of an ordinary “thriller” shadowed by political intrigue. <em>Birchwood</em> (1973), a novel of a family, isolation, and a blighted Ireland.</figcaption></figure> <p>Settling in Dublin, Banville found work as a sub-editor — or copy editor, as the position is known in the United States — at <em>The Irish Press</em>, a daily newspaper. He continued to write all the while, and in 1970 his first book of stories, <em>Long Lankin</em>, was published. His first novel, <em>Nightspawn</em>, appeared in 1971, followed by a second novel, <em>Birchwood</em>, two years later. Many years would pass before Banville could depend on his writing for his livelihood, and he continued to work at <em>The Irish Press</em> while he and Janet raised their two sons.</p> <p>As Banville acquired mastery of his form, he undertook more and more ambitious projects. In a trilogy of novels — <em>Doctor Copernicus</em> (1976), <em>Kepler</em> (1981) and <em>The Newton Letter</em> (1982) — he explored the lives of pioneering scientists. The first of these brought Banville one of his first major literary awards, the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction. <em>The Newton Letter</em> was the first of Banville’s works to be adapted for film or television. Banville’s television adaptation, <em>Reflections</em>, was broadcast by the BBC in 1984. A standalone novel, <em>Mefisto</em> (1986), was followed by another trilogy. <em>The Book of Evidence </em>(1989), <em>Ghosts </em>(1993) and <em>Athena </em>(1995) feature an interlocking cast of characters and deal with questions of art, mythology, murder, and a disturbingly unreliable narrator.</p> <figure id="attachment_43577" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-43577 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/trilogy-1.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-43577 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1200" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/trilogy-1.jpg 2280w, /web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/trilogy-1-380x200.jpg 380w, /web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/trilogy-1-760x400.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/trilogy-1.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">The <em>Revolutions</em> Trilogy: <em>Doctor Copernicus</em> (1976). In this work of historical fiction, John Banville offers a vivid portrait of a man of painful reticence, haunted by a malevolent brother and baffled by the conspiracies that rage around him and his ideas. In <em>Kepler</em> (1981), Banville re-creates the life of Johannes Kepler and his incredible drive to chart the orbits of the planets and the geometry of the universe. In <em>The Newton Letter</em> (1982), John Banville follows the adventures of an aspiring biographer of Isaac Newton who rents a rural retreat in the south of Ireland to write an in-depth treatment of an obscure and disturbing letter Newton sent in 1693 to philosopher John Locke.</figcaption></figure> <p><em>The Book of Evidence</em> drew its inspiration from an actual murder committed in Dublin some years previously and was shortlisted for Britain’s prestigious Booker Prize.  Banville’s novels were attracting increasing attention from the literary press. <em>The Irish Press</em>, financially troubled for years, finally ceased publication in 1995, and Banville moved to <em>The Irish Times</em>, where he was appointed literary editor in 1998. He remained at the <em>Times</em> for many years and has continued to contribute reviews to the paper long after he ceased to depend on it for his income. His work was being read well outside of Ireland, and he began writing essays and criticism for international publications, including <em>The New York Review of Books</em>.</p> <figure id="attachment_43578" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-43578 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/trilogy-2.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-43578 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1200" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/trilogy-2.jpg 2280w, /web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/trilogy-2-380x200.jpg 380w, /web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/trilogy-2-760x400.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/trilogy-2.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text"><em>Frames: The Freddie Montgomery Trilogy:</em> In <em>The Book of Evidence</em> (1989), returning to Ireland to reclaim a painting that is part of his patrimony, a thirty-eight-year-old man commits a ghastly and motiveless murder, which he confesses in a novel-length narrative. In <em>Ghosts</em> (1993), a group of travelers disembarks on a small island in the Irish Sea after their ship runs aground. There they stumble upon a house inhabited by Professor Kreutznaer, his assistant Licht, and a character referred to only as “Little God.” It is later revealed that Little God can be identified with Freddie Montgomery, the narrator of <i>The Book of Evidence.</i> In <em>Athena</em> (1995), Banville offers a literary thriller in which his guilt-plagued narrator is drawn into both an art theft and a passionate affair with a mysterious woman.</figcaption></figure> <p>Banville continued to branch out in his writing, with another film for television and the first of a series of adaptations of plays by the 19th-century German author Heinrich von Kleist. He drew more praise for his 1997 novel, <em>The Untouchable</em>, which dealt with a fictional traitor, modeled in part on Sir Anthony Blunt, the British art historian and Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, who was exposed publicly as a Soviet spy many years after his confession to the authorities.</p> <figure id="attachment_43631" style="width: 974px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-43631 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-852326034.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-43631 lazyload" alt="" width="974" height="1470" data-sizes="(max-width: 974px) 100vw, 974px" data-srcset="/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-852326034.jpg 974w, /web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-852326034-252x380.jpg 252w, /web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-852326034-504x760.jpg 504w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-852326034.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1996: One of the hallmarks of John Banville’s writing is intertextual repetition, where motifs or allusions recur from novel to novel. Regarded as the most stylistically elaborate Irish writer of his generation, Banville is committed to language and to rhythm above plot, characterization, or pacing. (Photo by Sophie Bassouls/Sygma/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p>A third trilogy, also featuring a recurring set of characters, began to appear in 2000, with <em>Eclipse</em>, followed by <em>Shroud </em>(2002). The following years, Banville published a work of nonfiction, <em>Prague Pictures: Portrait of a City</em>. Banville continued his interest in the work of Heinrich von Kleist with <em>God’s Gift</em> (2000) and <em>Love in the Wars</em> (2005), theatrical adaptations of Kleist’s <em>Amphitryon</em> and <em>Penthesilea</em>, respectively.  Banville’s novel <em>The Sea </em>(2005) is set, in part, in an Irish seaside village like one the author knew as a child. <em>The Sea</em> was acclaimed as Banville’s masterwork and at last brought him the Booker Prize, the most coveted award in English letters.</p> <figure id="attachment_43637" style="width: 1556px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-43637 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/untouchable.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-43637 lazyload" alt="" width="1556" height="2327" data-sizes="(max-width: 1556px) 100vw, 1556px" data-srcset="/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/untouchable.jpg 1556w, /web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/untouchable-254x380.jpg 254w, /web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/untouchable-508x760.jpg 508w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/untouchable.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text"><em>The Untouchable</em> (1997). John Banville’s eleventh novel is presented from the point of view of art historian, double agent and homosexual Victor Maskell, a character based largely on the Cambridge spy Anthony Blunt.</figcaption></figure> <p>On the side, Banville concocted an alter ego, “Benjamin Black,” to write genre mystery novels as a vacation from his serious literary work.  He writes his Benjamin Black stories more quickly than his other novels, usually over the summer, returning to his literary labors in the autumn. Half a dozen of the Black novels, beginning with <em>Christine Falls</em> in 2006, featured as their protagonist a Dublin pathologist called Dr. Quirke, but more recently, “Benjamin Black” has taken on historical subjects as well.  In <em>The Black-Eyed Blonde</em>, Black continued the adventures of Philp Marlowe, the hard-boiled sleuth created by American crime writer Raymond Chandler in the 1930s.</p> <figure id="attachment_43642" style="width: 2015px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-43642 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-55891651.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-43642 lazyload" alt="" width="2015" height="2754" data-sizes="(max-width: 2015px) 100vw, 2015px" data-srcset="/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-55891651.jpg 2015w, /web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-55891651-278x380.jpg 278w, /web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-55891651-556x760.jpg 556w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-55891651.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">October 10, 2005: John Banville’s novel about love, loss, and the unpredictable power of memory, <em>The Se</em>a, wins Britain’s highest literary award, the Man Booker Prize, in a ceremony at the Guildhall in London, England. (Getty)</figcaption></figure> <p>Under his own name, John Banville continued a variety of literary activities, writing screenplays for films, including <em>Albert Nobbs</em>, from a story by the Irish writer George Moore; <em>The End of the Affair</em>, based on the novel by Graham Greene; and the film adaptation of his own novel <em>The Sea</em>. His subsequent novels have included <em>The Infinities </em>(2009), which revisited the myth of Amphitryon he had explored in <em>God’s Gift;</em> <em>Ancient Light </em>(2012), which concluded the trilogy begun with <em>Eclipse </em>and <em>Shroud</em>; and the 2015 novel <em>The Blue Guitar</em>. In 2016, Banville published a nonfiction travelogue and love letter to the city he has long called home, <em>Time Pieces: A Dublin Memoir</em>.</p> <figure id="attachment_43651" style="width: 1532px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-43651 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/benjamin-falls.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-43651 lazyload" alt="" width="1532" height="2323" data-sizes="(max-width: 1532px) 100vw, 1532px" data-srcset="/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/benjamin-falls.jpg 1532w, /web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/benjamin-falls-251x380.jpg 251w, /web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/benjamin-falls-501x760.jpg 501w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/benjamin-falls.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Benjamin Black, the pen name of John Banville, is the author of <em>Christine Falls</em> (2006), <em>The Silver Swan</em> (2007), <em>Elegy for April</em> (2010), <em>A Death in Summer</em> (2011), <em>Vengeance</em> (2012), <em>Holy Orders</em> (2013), <em>The Lemur</em> (2008), <em>The Black-Eyed Blonde</em> (as Raymond Chandler) (2014) and <em>Even the Dead</em> (2015). John Banville describes Black as his “dark twin.”</figcaption></figure> <p>Banville’s work has enjoyed great success not only in the English-speaking world but in translation.  He has received three major literary prizes — including a knighthood — in Italy alone, as well as honors in Austria, the Czech Republic (the Franz Kafka Prize) and Spain (the Prince of Asturias Award).  He has been proposed repeatedly as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature.</p> <figure id="attachment_43645" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-43645 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-808659720.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-43645 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1514" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-808659720.jpg 2280w, /web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-808659720-380x252.jpg 380w, /web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-808659720-760x505.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-808659720.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">December 9, 2010: (left to right) Director Rodrigo Garcia; actress, producer and screenwriter Glenn Close; screenwriter John Banville; and actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson during a press conference at the Merrion Hotel, Dublin, Ireland, before the start of production of the feature film <em>Albert Nobbs</em>. John Banville has written the screenplays for <i>Reflections, </i>an adaptation of <i>The Newton Letter</i> for TV (1984), <i>Seascapes</i> (TV film) (1994), <i>The Last September </i>(1999),<i> </i><i>Albert Nobbs </i>(2011),<i> </i>and <i>The Sea </i>(2013).<i> </i>(Photo: Julien Behal/PA Images via Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p>As a young writer, Banville had struggled to escape the overpowering influence of his compatriot James Joyce and found an alternative model in the work of another Irish author, Samuel Beckett, whose novels and plays often featured eccentric, obsessive narrators like those found in some of Banville’s works. Critics have compared Banville’s rapturous attention to the details of everyday life to the work of the French novelist Marcel Proust and the great Russian-American stylist Vladimir Nabokov.  Although Banville has acknowledged his admiration for Nabokov as well as Franz Kafka, he has long claimed the American author Henry James as his most important influence. Banville repaid his debt to James with a tribute in the form of a novel, <em>Mrs. Osmond</em> (2017), continuing the story of Isabel Archer, the heroine of James’s <em>Portrait of a Lady</em>.</p> <figure id="attachment_40770" style="width: 1900px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-40770 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0660.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-40770 lazyload" alt="" width="1900" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 1900px) 100vw, 1900px" data-srcset="/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0660.jpg 1900w, /web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0660-380x304.jpg 380w, /web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0660-760x608.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0660.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">2017: Council member and the artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Sir Trevor Nunn, presents the Academy’s Golden Plate Award to John Banville at the 52nd annual International Achievement Summit in London.</figcaption></figure> <p>Having already published more than 30 books, John Banville continues to write every day, keeping regular hours in an office he maintains near his home in Dublin. His marriage to Janet Dunham ended many years ago and their sons are grown. Since then, he has lived in Dublin with his partner, Patricia Quinn. They have two daughters.</p> </body></html> <div class="clearfix"> <figure class="achiever__video-block"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/84nDkfs2VqA?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/screenshot-bio-video-1520x855-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/03/screenshot-bio-video-1520x855-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video__copy m-t-1"> <p><strong>(John Banville reads the opening paragraph of his Booker Prize novel, <em>The Sea</em>.)</strong></p> <p>“They departed, the gods, on the day of the strange tide. All morning under a milky sky the waters in the bay had swelled and swelled, rising to unheard-of heights, the small waves creeping over parched sand that for years had known no wetting save for rain and lapping the very bases of the dunes. The rusted hulk of the freighter that had run aground at the far end of the bay longer ago than any of us could remember must have thought it was being granted a relaunch. I would not swim again, after that day. The seabirds mewled and swooped, unnerved, it seemed, by the spectacle of that vast bowl of water bulging like a blister, lead-blue and malignantly agleam. They looked unnaturally white, that day, those birds. The waves were depositing a fringe of soiled yellow foam along the waterline. No sail marred the high horizon. I would not swim, no, not ever again. Someone has just walked over my grave. Someone.”</p> </figcaption> </figure> </div> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="profile" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <header class="editorial-article__header"> <figure class="text-xs-center"> <img class="inductee-badge" src="/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/inducted-badge@2x.png" alt="Inducted Badge" width="120" height="120"/> <figcaption class="serif-3 text-brand-primary"> Inducted in 2017 </figcaption> </figure> </header> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <dl class="clearfix m-b-0"> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Career</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> <div><a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.novelist">Novelist</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.author">Author</a></div> </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> December 8, 1945 </dd> </div> </dl> </aside> <article class="col-md-8 editorial-article clearfix"> <div class="page" title="Page 26"> <div class="layoutArea"> <div class="column"> <p>The Irish author John Banville has been praised as the most imaginative literary novelist writing in English today, as well as one of the language’s greatest living stylists. In addition to his perfectly crafted, lyrical prose, his novels are noted for the mordant humor of his eccentric narrators.</p> <p>John Banville wrote his first book of short stories at 25 and to date has published 18 novels under his own name, including the <em>Revolutions</em> trilogy examining the lives of Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton. As a break from his literary fiction, he has written a series of crime novels under the pen name Benjamin Black.</p> <p>After numerous nominations for his earlier work, Banville was awarded the English-speaking world’s highest literary honor, the Man Booker Prize, for his 2005 novel of childhood and memory, <em>The Sea</em>. A dramatist and screenwriter as well as a novelist, he has adapted three plays by the German dramatist Heinrich von Kleist, and written screenplays for films, including an adaptation of his novel <em>The Sea</em>. He has cited Henry James as one of his inspirations; his latest book, <em>Mrs. Osmond</em>, is a sequel to James’s <em>The Portrait of a Lady</em>.</p> </div> </div> </div> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="interview" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <div class="col-md-12 interview-feature-video"> <figure> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/UKhyYCHJxkU?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Banville-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_26_39_03.Still004-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Banville-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_26_39_03.Still004-760x428.jpg"></div> <div class="video-tag sans-4"> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> <div class="video-tag__text">Watch full interview</div> </div> </div> </figure> </div> <header class="col-md-12 text-xs-center m-b-2"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> </header> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <h2 class="serif-3 achiever--biography-subtitle">The Nature of Perception</h2> <div class="sans-2">London, England</div> <div class="sans-2">October 18, 2017</div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8">   <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>Most writers have a regular routine. How about you? Do you have a daily routine? </strong></p> <p>John Banville: I keep office hours. I work from 9:30 to 6:00. It’s curious. In the morning, I could just about tie my shoelaces before noon, but I can write. It’s obviously a different part of my brain that’s working.</p> <p><strong>Is your favorite time to write in the morning?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: No. The afternoon.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/UCPPQ2zRcgo?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Banville-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_32_47_26.Still018-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Banville-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_32_47_26.Still018-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/passion/">Passion</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Morning, you write for maybe three hours, but you’re still just preparing. But about 3:00 in the afternoon, when I’ve sunk to such a level of concentration that I don’t know who I am, time expands and contracts. I was working one day in my study and my wife put her head in the door and said, “I’m going to the shops.” She closed the door and then opened it again. I said, “I thought you were going to the shops.” She said, “I have been to the shops.” But I had no sense of that time having passed. I was in a different temporal area. And that’s where you really concentrate. You forget yourself. You forget your surroundings. You forget everything.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_43663" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-43663 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-852312410.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-43663 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="3419" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-852312410.jpg 2280w, /web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-852312410-253x380.jpg 253w, /web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-852312410-507x760.jpg 507w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-852312410.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1991: Irish writer John Banville walks in Paris. He worked in journalism from 1969, as a sub-editor, at <em>The Irish Press</em> and from 1986 at <em>The Irish Times</em>. He was literary editor of <em>The Irish Times</em> from 1988 to 1999. John Banville published his first book, <em>Long Lankin</em>, a collection of short stories and a novella, in 1970 at the age of 25. (Getty)</figcaption></figure> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>What are you concentrating on? The characters? The movement of the story?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: Oh no, the language. The language. Everything comes out of the language — the plot, character, everything. And it’s the sentence. The sentence is how I work, that’s the unit that I work by. James Joyce worked by the paragraph. Very few people ever notice that, but Joyce is a master of the paragraph. I’m not very good at paragraphs, but I’m not too bad at sentences. And each sentence generates the next one. If you get a sentence that’s as close to being perfect as you can — which is still pretty far away from perfect, but it’s as close as you can get — then that generates the next one. And I trust the sentence to create characters, to make a plot, to carry me along. Anyway, what’s the point of a plot, you know? Has life got a plot? Not that I know of. So why should a novel have a plot? But it has to have some kind of story. It has to have some kind of structure.</p> <p><strong>When reviewers write about your work, they often mention the sense of place, that the settings really come alive in your work. Is that what you work for?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/4zw6HF1X3IE?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Banville-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_31_45_08.Still019-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Banville-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_31_45_08.Still019-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>John Banville: I try to have a sense of immediacy. It seems to me that the only reason to make a work of art is to try to make the reader or the listener or the viewer feel, taste, hear, smell the world as it is. But of course, we don’t do it as it is. A novel is nothing like the world and nothing like life, but it produces a wonderful simulacrum of it. A strangely compelling parallel version of the world that people think is real. I wrote a book once about Johannes Kepler, the great astronomer who lived in the 1600s. And people said to me how well I’d caught the period. But I was too polite to say to them, “How do you know?” But they were giving me a wonderful compliment. They were saying, “You created something here that looks and sounds and smells to me what I imagine the 1600s were like.” So that’s all we can do is — it’s a kind of glorified transcendental lying. That’s what fiction is.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>And why do you love that?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/Yt38RwYFk8A?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Banville-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_23_33_12.Still007-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Banville-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_23_33_12.Still007-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/passion/">Passion</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>John Banville: I love telling lies. I love making stories. I love interpreting the world. It’s why I started to write, in order to interpret the world to myself because I didn’t understand it. I found it baffling. I find the world baffling. I think the only reason that we’re not constantly surprised is that, as Beckett says, “Habit is a great deadener.” But the sky is an extraordinary phenomenon. You look up and you’re looking into infinity. And then the clouds come along. Clouds are the most amazing things. The sea is amazing. It’s flat. Everything else in the world is up and down. The sea is flat. And you walk along the land, and you come to this extraordinary flat phenomenon. It never ceases to baffle me.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_43658" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-43658 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-LondonSummit_0938.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-43658 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-LondonSummit_0938.jpg 2280w, /web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-LondonSummit_0938-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20190119173032im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-LondonSummit_0938-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-LondonSummit_0938.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">2017: John Banville addresses Academy of Achievement delegates and members during a symposium in London.</figcaption></figure> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>How do you begin work on a book?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/Yi7FJKs0MiI?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Banville-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_25_03_06.Still003-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Banville-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_25_03_06.Still003-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>John Banville: I think it begins as a kind of tension in space. There’s something out there and it’s waiting for the big bang, and I have to get that into my head. I have a composer friend in Ireland, and he beautifully said, “I have this scream in my head and I have to get it into the orchestra. I have to get it into the music.” But I wouldn’t be quite as dramatic as that. But I have this tension. I have this thing that has to be done. And the problem is, you see, once you’ve got the first paragraph down and you’ve got the tone, then the bloody book is written. All you have to do is fill it in then, which makes it really boring. I mean I’d like to be like one of those Japanese artists, you know, just go <em>shoop</em>! and it’s done. But no, it takes years.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>When you write that first paragraph and you have the tone right, do you know where it’s going to go, or does it keep unfolding?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/EeZ81HROtNY?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Banville-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_30_17_02.Still017-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Banville-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_30_17_02.Still017-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/preparation/">Preparation</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>John Banville: The first paragraph is the absolute. For me, it’s the essential. One of my books — I can’t remember which — I spent, I think, three, maybe four, months writing the first paragraph. Sometimes I was just writing the same paragraph, trying to get the tone, because tone is everything. Now don’t ask me to explain what tone is. But I have to hear the voice. And every novel has its own voice and its own tone. Once you get that, then you’ve got it. And curiously, it has a lot to do with getting the names of the characters right. If you’re going through Henry James’s notebooks, you see a long list of names, possible names. Now, how do you know when a character’s name is right? You don’t. But somehow it makes a chime. It just sounds — it feels right, and that is very important for me.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>Do you read your paragraph over and over again so that you can hear the chime?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/3oq7cqoz6s0?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Banville-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_17_57_27.Still006-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Banville-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_17_57_27.Still006-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>John Banville: I have this very rich, poetic voice that I hear myself reading in. I do it with this sort of cadence — <em>vroom</em>! — chanting it. I’m not aware I’m doing it. That’s for the rhythm. I mean rhythm is almost as important as tone. I’ve been planning — for the past week, I’ve been planning, writing and rewriting the first sentence of my next book over and over again. I sent my wife three separate versions of it by email last night, asking her which sounds best. And I’ll be doing that for weeks and weeks and weeks. But when I get that sentence right, then I’ll know that I can get going on the first paragraph. And when I get the first paragraph as near to right as I can get it, then I’ll be on my way. I just ask her opinion. She has perfect pitch as far as my work is concerned. One of my books, I remember, she took me away for a weekend after I had given it to her to read, and she said, “You can’t do this, you know. You can’t publish this. You’ll disgrace yourself.” I started blustering, and she said, “Bluster away, but you know yourself it’s not right.” And of course it wasn’t, and I had to go back through it, like clawing sort of grass out of a pond, getting rid of the awful stuff that was there to leave the clear water behind.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>You once said that you have to try to do things that you think you’re incapable of. What did you mean?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: You have to do what’s difficult. You have to push yourself beyond what you know you can do. Otherwise it would be so boring.</p> <p><strong>Writing is such a solitary endeavor. Is it hard work for you?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20190119173032if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/WP3eWxnT1VQ?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Banville-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_03_48_17.Still005-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Banville-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_03_48_17.Still005-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>John Banville: It’s immensely hard work, but what’s the point of doing easy work? It’s immensely rewarding. It’s immensely infuriating and painful and horrifying at times. I remember when I was doing one of my books and it was giving me a sense of trouble. I sat down in a chair one day. I couldn’t do any more. I actually had a vision of myself writhing in pain on the floor. So it’s terribly, terribly difficult. But you know, anything worthwhile doing is always difficult.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>When you do take a break from writing, what do you do?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: I never do. I write 24 hours a day, even when I’m asleep. Especially when I’m asleep! I mean we all write when we’re asleep. As Nietzsche said, every man’s an artist when he sleeps. They make up these fantastic worlds, people you’ve never met, places you’ve never been to, things you’ve never done. And for the period that you’re dreaming of it, they’re absolutely real. Extraordinary phenomenon!</p> <p><strong>But you’ve had massive success. You’ve won all these prizes. Can’t you just take it easy now?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: I’d melt! And now I’ve come to an age where I keep waiting for the day when I forget a word and have forgotten it in such a way that I know it’s gone and then I know dementia is coming on. Maybe then I’ll give up. I might go back to painting then. I might discover that I wasn’t too bad after all. But there’s a wonderful story of Henry James when he was dying. He was in a coma and his hand was moving across the sheet. He was still writing. That will be me, writing until I fall off the edge.</p> </div>    <aside class="collapse" id="full-interview">    <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>You grew up in Ireland in the years after the war, when it was a relatively poor country. What was your childhood like?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: W. H. Auden said that an artist should be loaded with as much childhood as he can bear because it will do him good in later life. I was misfortunate. I had a happy childhood. At least, when I look back on it, it seems to have been happy. Boring, of course. I mean I regard childhood as a complete waste of time. My own children, I told them to grow up as quickly as they could and stop all this nonsense. Stop. Apart from anything else, children just pretend to be children to save the embarrassment of adults. We know everything by the time we’re nine, ten or eleven. The rest is just refinement. The rest is detail. We know it all by then, but we pretend we don’t so that our parents won’t be embarrassed.</p> <p><strong>What did your parents think of your writing?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: My mother I don’t think ever read anything that I wrote. But I didn’t mind that. I understood it. I think she was afraid of what she would find. My father read some of it and he thought it was quite good.</p> <p><strong>What was his job?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: He worked in a very big garage and motor parts supplier. He was very proud that he wore a white collar, but over his suit and his white shirt and his tie, he wore a brown coat. So he was halfway between white collar and, as you would say, blue collar. My parents were simple people. Very clever, but not well educated. My mother was like Irina in Chekhov’s<em> Three Sisters</em>. She longed to go to Moscow. Moscow, for her, being Dublin. And at the end of her life, she moved to Dublin, of course. It wasn’t Moscow. It wasn’t even Dublin. It was a dream. And you should never move to your dream place.</p> <p><strong>Never move to your dream place? Do you really believe that?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: Yes. Keep the dream. A young man once phoned up Ava Gardner in her old age and said — no, it was Rita Hayworth — and said, “I would really love to meet you. I think you’re the most beautiful woman in the world.” And she said, “I’m not now. Keep the dream.” So she didn’t meet him.</p> <p><strong>Were there a lot of books in your house? Both your siblings are also writers. What were you reading at your house?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: It wasn’t a big reading household. My mother read magazines. My father read Wild West stories. It was a small town. It was a bleak time, the late ‘50s, early ‘60s. Everything arrives 20 years later in Ireland, so the ‘60s arrived in the ‘80s for us. So it was as if I needed to escape from the world that I lived in. But I also needed to enter into it, and writing allowed me to do both.</p> <p><strong>When you were growing up, did anyone say you had a gift for writing?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: My brother and sister were older than I. Yes, they would have encouraged me. But I don’t think either of them went so far as to say I have a gift. I think they just regarded me as an annoying little twerp and they would encourage me in order to get me out of their hair.</p> <p><strong>When did you first think that you wanted to be a writer?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: I think I was about 12 or 13 and my sister gave me a copy of James Joyce’s story collection <em>Dubliners</em>. And I was amazed to discover that fiction could be about life, as I knew it. Here was writing that wasn’t a crime novel or a schoolyard or a Wild West story. This was about ordinary gray life. But by the power of imagination and the power of language, Joyce showed the ordinary to be utterly extraordinary as it is. Joyce said — and I agree with him — he said, “I’ve never met an ordinary person.” Nor have I.</p> <p><strong>You didn’t go on to university, did you?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: My mother said to me, “If you want to do this artistic stuff, why don’t you become an architect? At least then you get a job and make money.” So to please her, I went along for a little while with the notion of being an architect. But I had no gift whatsoever for architecture. I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to get away from home and I wanted to travel.</p> <p><strong>Why did you want to get away from home?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: Doesn’t every child want to get away from home? One wanted to start one’s own life. And we’re completely callous when we’re young. We just walk away from our parents, you know, as if, “Don’t bother me anymore” — which, of course, I feel horribly guilty about now that it’s much too late, but I wanted to be free. I wanted to be free. And I went to work for the airline, for Aer Lingus, because that was the way to travel. I had a job as a clerk, which was not interesting in any way, but the travel was superb.</p> <p>I remember taking a flight first-class on Lufthansa, direct from London to San Francisco, for two pounds. A lot of the travel was free. In those days, it cost about 250 pounds to come from Dublin to London, because ordinary people didn’t travel. It was just businesspeople and the wealthy. So here was a wonderful way to travel. I got to go to Paris. I got to go to Rome. I got to go to Greece, and I got to go to America. It was wonderful.</p> <p><strong>How did you go from being someone who worked in airline reservations to someone who could make money as a writer?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: I haven’t gotten to that stage yet! I’m aiming towards it. I met my future wife in San Francisco in 1968. I was in Berkeley in May of 1968<strong>, </strong>where she lived. I can still smell the tear gas. And then, the following year, we spent a year together in London. And then we thought — well, I finished my first book and had it accepted for publication that year. Then we thought we would go back to Ireland for a year or two, and we’re still there. I can’t write anywhere else. I need the Irish climate, which is the most wonderful climate in the world. People are constantly complaining about it. It’s a marvelous climate. And the light is absolutely perfect. The light is so beautiful in Ireland. It has this pearly sheen to it even in high summer, in the odd days when the sun shines. It still has that lovely steely pearly shade that I cannot do without. The only other city I’ve ever come across the same light is in Copenhagen. But I love it.</p> <p><strong>How do you feel about the rain?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: I love rain. Rain is the most extraordinary phenomenon. When it rains, we should be out cheering. Water falls from the sky. Isn’t that a miracle? You know, just you’re walking around and suddenly water is falling on you, and it’s making things grow and it’s washing the street. After a time of drought, you can see the trees, when rain falls, you can see the trees just drinking it in. It’s wonderful to watch in the springtime especially.</p> <p><strong>What is it about Ireland? Why has such a small island produced so many writers?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: Well, I have a theory. This is my pet theory, and I’ll be as brief as I can. We lost the Irish language in the middle of the 19th century, in the period of the famine in the 1840s. We did this extraordinary thing of giving up Irish and moving to English. It never happened anywhere else<span style="text-decoration: line-through;">.</span><strong> </strong>We gave it up. We decided as a people. We didn’t make an agreement. We didn’t have a consensus, but we just quietly gave it up and took on English. But the English that we took on was like the Latin of the Roman Empire, a language of command, of narrative, of plain speech, of direct speech, whereas the Irish language is a very oblique, very poetic medium. I often think of the Irish language as a mode of evasion rather than of communication. And when you put those two together, you get this strange new language, which we call Hibernian English, which is a marvelous literary medium. But I think it’s because of the richness of this language that we have that we produce so many Anglo-Irish writers.</p> <p><strong>Is it the words? Is it the way it’s put together? What’s different about it?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: We love ambiguity. George Orwell said that prose should be a pane of glass that you look through at what’s being said. For us, language is a lens, a lens that’s distorted, that gets you closer to the thing<strong><u>,</u></strong> but they do distort. But they’re also very highly polished. So that’s what we did with the English language. We took it and rejoiced in it. There’s a pun.</p> <p><strong>You’re so often praised as an imaginative writer. Is there something you do to stoke that?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: Imagine being described as a <em>non</em>-imaginative writer! As I said at the start, I just find the world incomprehensible. I think I’ve fixed on writing as a way to try to explain it to myself. Well, not to explain it, to account for the world to myself.</p> <p><strong>What advice would you give to a young writer who feels that this is what they want to do?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: I think all advice is useless because nobody ever takes it and quite right, too. But my own mottos are, “Don’t imagine for a moment that you’re going to be able to express yourself.” That’s not what art is at all. And most aspiring artists think, “I have something to say.” My friend the novelist Will Self has a wonderful witticism. He said, “It’s true, every man has a novel in him. Only <em>he</em> shouldn’t write it!” But I have two mottos, one from Kafka. “The artist is the one who has nothing to say.” And the other is from one of the ancient Romans, Cato the Censor, who had a wonderful — he said, “<em>Rem tene, verba sequentur.” “</em>Grasp the object and the words will follow.” Don’t think about what you think about the world. Don’t think about your feelings or your emotions or your aspirations. Think about the object.</p> <p>The poet Rilke, one of the great poets — 20th century — when he was young, he worked briefly for Rodin, the sculptor. Rodin said to him, “You know, you’re much too precious.” He said, “I’ll tell you what you do. You go to the Jardin des Plantes; go to the zoo. Pick an animal and spend a day. Just sit on a bench and watch that animal. Then go away and write a poem about it.” And it was one of the first of Rilke’s great masterpieces, “The Panther.” A very short poem, but it’s absolutely perfect because it’s not about Rilke’s feelings or anything else; it’s about the panther’s feelings and what it’s like to be a panther because that’s what art is. Art is what objects are in themselves, not what <em>you</em> are. I have nothing to say.</p> <p><strong>Do you have pictures of your family around you when you write? Or is it too distracting?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: Oh, it’s much too distracting. My wife found a photograph of herself when she was in her 30s. She gave it to me, and I put it on my work desk, and I had to put it away. It was too distracting. It’s a terrible life in a way. We’re inhuman, you know. We’re cannibals and we eat our children. We would exchange our children for a good sentence. We’re monsters.</p> <p><strong>Do you have other friends that you talk to about writing?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: No. Writers never talk about writing. Writers only talk about money and how dreadful their agent is and how badly their publisher is treating them. That’s all. Writers are so boring.<strong> </strong>And then, you know, we all hate each other. We’re all jealous of each other. I remember the first time I met Martin Amis. I was coming over to London, and I wrote to him and said, “Let’s have lunch.” This was a long time ago, 35 years ago. And we met, two not very tall men sizing each other up. We met in a little restaurant in Ladbroke Grove. We started polite conversation. I said, “Now, Martin, let’s stop this. You hate me and I hate you, right? If you win a prize, I hate you. If you get a rave review, I hate you. Same with me.” Martin said, “You know, you’re right.” And we’ve been friends ever since.</p> <p><strong>But you were just being cheeky.</strong></p> <p>John Banville: No. We do hate each other. Nobody’s more jealous than writers, artists. And they’re always saying dreadful things about each other. My favorite moment is somebody asked Braque about his old friend Picasso when they were both old. And Braque said, “Pablo used to be a good painter. Now he’s just a genius.” Isn’t that wonderful?</p> <p><strong>Were you friends with the poet Seamus Heaney?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: I was a good friend of Seamus. I miss him still.</p> <p><strong>You weren’t exactly in competition there, so you could talk to him.</strong></p> <p>John Banville: Yes. John McGahern, a wonderful Irish novelist — the late McGahern, whose reputation has dipped a bit because every writer’s reputation dips after you die; it will come up again. But he and I were good friends. And we were having a drink one night, and we agreed that the only reason we can be good friends is that our writing was so different that we weren’t in competition.</p> <p><strong>Who are your favorite writers?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: The one I admire the most would be Henry James. I think he was the greatest novelist of all. The number of masterpieces that he left behind, it’s extraordinary. Nobody else came up to that level. I can’t talk about present-day people because it would be invidious, you know. If I mention one, I have to mention more. In Irish writing, I think that, certainly, people in my generation, we went either the Joyce route or the Beckett route. Joyce put everything in. Beckett took everything out. You have to choose one or the other.</p> <p><strong>And you chose?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: I chose Beckett. But God knows, my writing is not Beckettian. But Beckett’s writing is much richer than — I don’t know why people think Beckett is bleak. He’s always one of the funniest writers that ever wrote, superbly funny. And his works are extremely rich. But the curious thing is that he started to write in French “<em>pour écrire sans style</em>,” as he said — “to write without style.” And I think he succeeded. What little French I have, I see that Beckett’s French seemed kind of stilted. But when it goes into English, it comes alive. There’s a wonderful thing in one of the novels — I think it’s <em>Molloy</em><em> —</em> where he says, “Morning is the time to hide. They rise, hale and hearty, their tongues hanging out for beauty, order, and justice, baying for their due.” It was a wonderful canine image going through that. That’s not in French.</p> <p><strong>Since you’re always striving to do something you haven’t done before, what’s left on the table that you want to do?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: Oh, all kinds of things. I’ve just written a sequel to Henry James’s <em>The Portrait of a Lady</em>, which has just been published. Probably for my next book, I will revisit some of my characters from the early books. I’m also writing under my pseudonym — my disgraceful twin, Benjamin Black — I’m writing an erotic mystery set in Venice in 1900.</p> <p><strong>An erotic mystery? Have you written erotica before?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: No. I mean it’s not going to be pornographic. Pornography is just boring. It’s like reading about plumbing. But the erotic is such a subtle form, and it vibrates in a way that — I mean all good art is erotic. It should make you feel slightly feverish, slightly overexcited, slightly lost to yourself. But it’s a Benjamin Black book so I cannot give it all that much time.</p> <p><strong>Is there a deadline?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: No. I mean the publishers set limits, but they know that I’ll either meet it or I won’t. People always complain about their publishers. I’ve never had anything but wonderful publishers and editors. I don’t know what people are complaining about. People who work in publishing still are dedicated. They’re selfless. Their names don’t get onto the title page. Sometimes they get into the acknowledgements at the back, but that’s about it. But they’re selfless people who want to produce good work, and it’s publishing good work. They want it to be as good as it can possibly be.</p> <p><strong>How did you pick the pseudonym Benjamin Black?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: I picked Benjamin <em>White</em> because he was a character in one of my early novels that I’m glad to say nobody reads anymore. My publishers said, “We think Black is better. It sounds better. It looks better if you’re going to write mystery stories. Also, it will be much higher up the librarian’s purchase list.”</p> <p><strong>So you write the Benjamin Black novels straight through from beginning to end?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: I finish one book and then go back to what I was working on as Banville. You see, it takes me, two, three, four, five years to write a Banville book. So I have to interrupt it and then go back to it when I write a Benjamin Black.</p> <p><strong>How long will it take to write this Venetian mystery?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: Well, that’s giving me a lot of trouble, which I’m annoyed with. Usually, it takes about four months to write a Benjamin Black book. Real crime writers get furious when I say this, because they say, “Oh, it takes you so long to write your Banville books, but you’re obviously just cheapening yourself.” I said, “That’s not the point. To write crime fiction — mystery stories — you have to do it quickly and spontaneously.” Georges Simenon, the greatest of them all, he wrote his books in ten days. So speed is of the essence.</p> <p><strong>How do you know when it’s time for John Banville to write a literary novel or for Benjamin Black to write crime fiction? Do you wake up in the morning and say, “I think I’ll be Benjamin Black today.”</strong></p> <p>John Banville: No, no. I detest summer. Summer is the most boring season of all. I really hate it. So I kill the summer by writing a Benjamin Black novel. And then I spend the rest of the year being Banville.</p> <p><strong>Summer is the loveliest time of the year to most people. Why do you think it’s horrid?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: Nothing’s happening. The leaves are green and then they’re green and then they start to turn gray and the earth just sits there doing nothing. In autumn, the place just goes into mad color even in Ireland. In America, autumns are extraordinary. Spring is too disturbing. It gets the blood going, which is not good if you’re sitting in a room for eight hours a day and writing. The winter, you can feel the ground quaking as all that potential life is just getting ready to come up in the spring. These are the wonderful seasons, whereas summer is just summer. People are going on a holiday. I hate holidays. I really, really hate holidays. They’re no fun at all for me. I want to be at home. Look, to enjoy a holiday, you have to not enjoy your life. But I love my life. So why do I want to go away? I had a wonderful postcard from the playwright Brian Friel. He was in France on holiday, and he said, “Here for two weeks. One with good behavior!”</p> <p><strong>Did the travel help you in your writing in any way?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: Well, I imagine that it showed me something of a wider world. Although now, the age that I am now, I think that travel narrows the mind.</p> <p><strong>Why?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: I think one should stay at home. I have a plan that when I finally give up this writing business, I will become a travel agent. In my travel agency, the stipulation will be that you cannot travel more than 20 miles from where you live. So you have to have your holiday where you live. I mentioned this once to a couple in Portland, Oregon, and they said, “It’s funny you should say that because we were supposed to go to Europe last summer.” And for some reason, they had to cancel. I can’t remember what the reason was. But they said, “We told nobody. We didn’t even tell our family, didn’t even tell our children. But we just hired a luxury suite in a hotel in Portland and had our holiday there.” And they said, “We saw a whole side of Portland we’d never seen before,” and they said it was just an absolutely delightful holiday.</p> <p>My daughter works as a tour guide in Paris, and she said, “The one thing I’ve discovered is that 99.9 percent of people do not want to be on holiday. It’s the last thing they want to be doing. They don’t speak the language. They don’t like the people in the country they’re in. The food sickens them. They want to be home. They miss their kids.” They should stay at home. Tourism is destroying the world, absolutely destroying the world.</p> <p><strong>In what sense?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: I remember the first time I went to Venice with my wife and my two little boys and I discovered this entire corrupted city, a city that had been completely corrupted by tourism. All they cared about was money, money, money, money, money, money, as much of it as they could get out of us. And it was awful. Here they were living in one of the most beautiful cities in the world and all they cared about was money.</p> <p><strong>You’ve written three sets of books in three — trilogies. What is it about three? Why do people write in threes?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: That’s a good question. There must be something in our brains that — the triad must be — because it’s the same in music. It’s the same in religion even. You know, the Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. I was always fascinated by the Holy Ghost. God the Father and Christ I could understand, but the Holy Ghost? Who’s He? What does He do? So I think the triad is built into our deep mental makeup. Also, when you write a book and you think, “That’s dumb,” and then you think, “No, it’s not.” And then you try to get it right, so you do another one. And then you say, “They were both wrong. I’ll do a third one and that will get it right,” but it doesn’t, and then you give up and move on to something else.</p> <p><strong>When you read your past work now, do you like it?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: No, I hate all my work. It embarrasses me. All I see are the faults. Gary Larson has a wonderful cartoon in two parts. The top part is a flowerbed, and the flowers are absolutely beautiful. And it says, “How people see flowers.” In the second half, they’ve all gone cross-eyed and snaggleteeth. The caption is, “How flowers see themselves.” Well, that’s how I see my writing, cross-eyed and snaggletoothed.</p> <p><strong>Do you think it keeps you working harder for the next one?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: Oh, yes. As my wife said once, “If you get it right, you would stop, and then what would you do? Go into politics and God help us all!”</p> <p><strong>Do you have an interest in politics?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: No, but the ego of the writer is so enormous. And look at the 20th century. All the great monsters, they were all failed artists. Hitler wanted to be a painter. Stalin wanted to be a poet. Mao wanted to be a poet. Pol Pot wanted to be a poet. Nothing more dangerous than a failed artist.</p> <p><strong>Looking at your past work, do you remember the moment you looked at a piece of writing and knew you were done? You don’t have to edit this anymore.</strong></p> <p>John Banville: When I got so sick of it that I couldn’t face working on it anymore and I gave it up. That’s what we do, you know, we just give it up. Paul Valery said a work of art is never finished, only abandoned.</p> <p><strong>How do you know you’re done?</strong></p> <p>John Banville: I’ve got it to a point where I’m just sick of it and want to get rid of it. But I think the better answer is that when I was a teenager, I tried for a few years to be a painter. Again, no talent whatsoever. But it did teach me some painterly lessons. And one is that — and I think all painters know this; I’ve heard them speak of it. But you get a painting to a certain point, even an abstract painting, and you know that if you apply one more piece of color, the whole thing will just turn to mud. And I think it’s the same with a sentence. You get to a point where you know, “If I keep fiddling with this, it will die, it will go dead, it will become dull.”</p> <p><strong>There’s a sentence in </strong><em><strong>The Sea</strong></em><strong> that readers can’t forget. You said, “The past beats inside me like a second heart.” </strong></p> <p>John Banville: It’s absolutely extraordinary. That is the one sentence that everybody remembers from my books. I don’t know why. It hits some chord. It took me about ten seconds to write. I didn’t even think about it. But for some reason, it just lodges with people.</p> <p><strong>The beginning of the book is also famous and justifiably so.</strong></p> <p>John Banville: Can I read some of it?</p> <p><strong>Yes, that’d be great.</strong></p> <p>John Banville: “They departed, the gods, on the day of the strange tide. All morning, under a milky sky, the waters in the bay had swelled and swelled, rising to unheard-of heights, the small waves creeping over parched sand that for years had known no wetting save for rain and lapping the very bases of the dunes. The rusted hulk of the freighter that had run aground at the far end of the bay longer ago than any of us could remember must have thought it was being granted a relaunch. I would not swim again, after that day. The seabirds mewled and swooped, unnerved, it seemed, by the spectacle of that vast bowl of water bulging like a blister, lead-blue and malignantly agleam. They looked unnaturally white, that day, those birds. The waves were depositing a fringe of soiled yellow foam along the waterline. No sail marred the high horizon. I would not swim, no, not ever again. Someone has just walked over my grave. Someone.”</p> <p>All right.</p> <p><strong>Thank you. That was beautiful.</strong></p> </div>  </aside>  <div class="read-more__toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#full-interview"><a href="#" class="sans-4 btn">Read full interview</a></div> </article> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="gallery" role="tabpanel"> <section class="isotope-wrapper">  <header class="toolbar toolbar--gallery bg-white clearfix"> <div class="col-md-6"> <div class="serif-4">John Banville Gallery</div> </div> <div class="col-md-6 text-md-right isotope-toolbar"> <ul class="list-unstyled list-inline m-b-0 text-brand-primary sans-4"> <li class="list-inline-item" data-filter=".photo"><i class="icon-icon_camera"></i>14 photos</li> </ul> </div> </header> <div class="isotope-gallery isotope-box single-achiever__gallery clearfix"> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.3669064748201" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-55891651.jpg" data-image-caption="October 10, 2005: John Banville’s novel about love, loss, and the unpredictable power of memory, <i>The Sea</i>, wins Britain’s highest literary award, the Man Booker Prize, in a ceremony at the Guildhall in London, England. (Getty)" data-image-copyright="The Man Booker Prize 2005 - Winner Announcement" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-55891651-278x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-55891651-556x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.496062992126" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/untouchable.jpg" data-image-caption="<i>The Untouchable</i> (1997). John Banville’s eleventh novel is presented from the point of view of art historian, double agent and homosexual Victor Maskell, a character based largely on the Cambridge spy Anthony Blunt." data-image-copyright="untouchable" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/untouchable-254x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/03/untouchable-508x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.2520593080725" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/John-Banville-pictured-at-the-age-of-eight.jpg" data-image-caption="John Banville at age eight. Banville was born and raised in Wexford, Ireland. He is the youngest of three children." data-image-copyright="John Banville, pictured at the age of eight" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/John-Banville-pictured-at-the-age-of-eight-304x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/03/John-Banville-pictured-at-the-age-of-eight-607x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.52631578947368" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/trilogy-3.jpg" data-image-caption="" data-image-copyright="trilogy-3" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/trilogy-3-380x200.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/03/trilogy-3-760x400.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.8" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0660.jpg" data-image-caption="2017: Council member and the artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Sir Trevor Nunn, presents the Academy’s Golden Plate Award to John Banville at the 52nd annual International Achievement Summit in London. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="wp-LondonSummit_0660" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0660-380x304.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0660-760x608.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4990138067061" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-176392560.jpg" data-image-caption="August 12, 2013, Edinburgh, Scotland: John Banville, Irish novelist and screenwriter, appears at a photocall prior to an event at the 30th Edinburgh International Book Festival. The Edinburgh International Book Festival is the world's largest annual literary event and takes place in the city which became a UNESCO City of Literature in 2004. (Photo by Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Edinburgh International Book Festival" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-176392560-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-176392560-507x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5079365079365" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-852326034.jpg" data-image-caption="1996: One of the hallmarks of John Banville’s writing is intertextual repetition, where motifs or allusions recur from novel to novel. Regarded as the most stylistically elaborate Irish writer of his generation, Banville is committed to language and to rhythm above plot, characterization, or pacing. (Photo by Sophie Bassouls/Sygma/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="WRITER JOHN BANVILLE" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-852326034-252x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-852326034-504x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4990138067061" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-852312410.jpg" data-image-caption="1991: Irish writer John Banville walks in Paris. He worked in journalism from 1969, as a sub-editor, at <i>The Irish Press</i> and from 1986 at <i>The Irish Times</i>. He was literary editor of <i>The Irish Times</i> from 1988 to 1999. John Banville published his first book, <i>Long Lankin</i>, a collection of short stories and a novella, in 1970 at the age of 25. (Getty)" data-image-copyright="Writer John Banville" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-852312410-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-852312410-507x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-480076635.jpg" data-image-caption="March 22, 2014, Oxford, England: John Banville, writer, on day one of the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival. (Photo by David Levenson/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival - Day 1" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-480076635-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-480076635-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-LondonSummit_0938.jpg" data-image-caption="2017: John Banville addresses Academy of Achievement delegates and members during a symposium in London. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="wp-LondonSummit_0938" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-LondonSummit_0938-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-LondonSummit_0938-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66447368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-808659720.jpg" data-image-caption="December 9, 2010: (left to right) Director Rodrigo Garcia; actress, producer and screenwriter Glenn Close; screenwriter John Banville; and actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson during a press conference at the Merrion Hotel, Dublin, Ireland, before the start of production of the feature film <i>Albert Nobbs</i>. John Banville has written the screenplays for <i>Reflections</i>, an adaptation of <i>The Newton Letter</i> for TV (1984), <i>Seascapes</i> (TV film) (1994), <i>The Last September</i> (1999), <i>Albert Nobbs</i> (2011), and <i>The Sea</i> (2013). (Photo Credit: Julien Behal/PA Images via Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="wp-GettyImages-808659720" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-808659720-380x252.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/03/wp-GettyImages-808659720-760x505.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.52631578947368" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/first-book-series.jpg" data-image-caption="<i>Long Lankin</i> (1970), Banville’s first book, a collection of short stories, explores the passionate emotions — fear, jealousy, desire — that course beneath the surface of everyday life. <i>Nightspawn</i> (1971), John Banville’s first novel, embraces themes of freedom and betrayal and toys with an implausible plot, the stuff of an ordinary "thriller" shadowed by political intrigue. <i>Birchwood</i> (1973), a novel of a family, isolation, and a blighted Ireland." data-image-copyright="first-book-series" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/first-book-series-380x200.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/03/first-book-series-760x400.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.52631578947368" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/trilogy-2.jpg" data-image-caption="<i>Frames: The Freddie Montgomery Trilogy</i>: In <i>The Book of Evidence</i> (1989), returning to Ireland to reclaim a painting that is part of his patrimony, a thirty-eight-year-old man commits a ghastly and motiveless murder, which he confesses in a novel-length narrative. In <i>Ghosts</i> (1993), a group of travelers disembarks on a small island in the Irish Sea after their ship runs aground. There they stumble upon a house inhabited by Professor Kreutznaer, his assistant Licht, and a character referred to only as “Little God.” It is later revealed that Little God can be identified with Freddie Montgomery, the narrator of <i>The Book of Evidence</i>. In <i>Athena</i> (1995), Banville offers a literary thriller in which his guilt-plagued narrator is drawn into both an art theft and a passionate affair with a mysterious woman." data-image-copyright="trilogy-2" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/trilogy-2-380x200.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/03/trilogy-2-760x400.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.52631578947368" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/trilogy-1.jpg" data-image-caption="The <i>Revolutions Trilogy</i>: <i>Doctor Copernicu</i>s (1976). In this work of historical fiction, John Banville offers a vivid portrait of a man of painful reticence, haunted by a malevolent brother and baffled by the conspiracies that rage around him and his ideas. In <i>Kepler</i> (1981), Banville re-creates the life of Johannes Kepler and his incredible drive to chart the orbits of the planets and the geometry of the universe. In <i>The Newton Letter</i> (1982), John Banville follows the adventures of an aspiring biographer of Isaac Newton who rents a rural retreat in the south of Ireland to write an in-depth treatment of an obscure and disturbing letter Newton sent in 1693 to philosopher John Locke." data-image-copyright="trilogy-1" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/trilogy-1-380x200.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/03/trilogy-1-760x400.jpg"></div>  </figure>    </div> </section> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <footer class="editorial-article__footer col-md-8 col-md-offset-4"> <div class="editorial-article__next-link sans-3"> <a href="#"><strong>What's next:</strong> <span class="editorial-article__next-link-title">profile</span></a> </div> <ul class="social list-unstyled list-inline ssk-group m-b-0"> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-facebook" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on 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id="find-achiever-list"> <div class="form-group"> <input id="find-achiever-input" class="search js-focus" placeholder="Search for an achiever"/> <i class="icon-icon_chevron-down"></i> </div> <ul class="find-achiever-list list m-b-0 list-unstyled"> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/hank-aaron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Hank Aaron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/kareem-abdul-jabbar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Kareem Abdul-Jabbar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lynsey-addario/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lynsey Addario</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/edward-albee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Edward Albee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tenley-albright-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tenley Albright, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/svetlana-alexievich/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Svetlana Alexievich</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/julie-andrews/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Julie Andrews</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/maya-angelou/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Angelou</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/robert-d-ballard-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert D. Ballard, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-roger-bannister-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Roger Bannister</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-banville/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Banville</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ehud-barak/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ehud Barak</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lee-r-berger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lee R. Berger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-timothy-berners-lee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Tim Berners-Lee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/yogi-berra/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Yogi Berra</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jeffrey-p-bezos/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jeffrey P. Bezos</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/benazir-bhutto/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Benazir Bhutto</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/simone-biles/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Simone Biles</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/keith-l-black/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Keith L. Black, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/elizabeth-blackburn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Elizabeth Blackburn, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-boies-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Boies</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/norman-e-borlaug/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman E. Borlaug, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/benjamin-c-bradlee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Benjamin C. Bradlee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sergey-brin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sergey Brin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carter-j-brown/"><span class="achiever-list-name">J. Carter Brown</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/linda-buck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linda Buck, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carol-burnett/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol Burnett</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/george-h-w-bush/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George H. W. Bush</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/susan-butcher/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Susan Butcher</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-cameron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Cameron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/benjamin-s-carson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Benjamin S. Carson, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-carter/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Carter</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/johnny-cash/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Cash</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/william-j-clinton/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William J. Clinton</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/francis-s-collins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/denton-a-cooley/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Denton A. Cooley, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/francis-ford-coppola/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Francis Ford Coppola</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ray-dalio/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Dalio</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/olivia-de-havilland/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Olivia de Havilland</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/michael-e-debakey-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Michael E. DeBakey, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/michael-dell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Michael S. Dell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ron-dennis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Dennis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/joan-didion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joan Didion</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-herbert-donald-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Herbert Donald, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-doubilet/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Doubilet</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/rita-dove/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rita Dove</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sylvia-earle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sylvia Earle, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/elbaradei/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mohamed ElBaradei</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/gertrude-elion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Gertrude B. Elion, M.Sc.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/larry-j-ellison/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry J. Ellison</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nora-ephron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nora Ephron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/julius-erving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Julius Erving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tony-fadell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tony Fadell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/paul-farmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Farmer, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/suzanne-farrell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzanne Farrell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/anthony-s-fauci-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sally-field/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally Field</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lord-norman-foster/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Norman Foster</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/aretha-franklin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Aretha Franklin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/milton-friedman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Milton Friedman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carlos-fuentes/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Fuentes</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/athol-fugard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Athol Fugard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ernest-j-gaines/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernest J. Gaines</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/william-h-gates-iii/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William H. Gates III</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/leymah-gbowee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leymah Gbowee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-gehry/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank O. Gehry</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/murray-gell-mann-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Murray Gell-Mann, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carlos-ghosn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Ghosn</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Vince Gill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ruth-bader-ginsburg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ruth Bader Ginsburg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/louise-gluck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louise Glück</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/whoopi-goldberg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Whoopi Goldberg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jane-goodall/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Jane Goodall</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/doris-kearns-goodwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mikhail-s-gorbachev/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mikhail S. Gorbachev</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nadine-gordimer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nadine Gordimer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-jay-gould/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carol-greider-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol Greider, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-grisham/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Grisham</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-john-gurdon/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir John Gurdon</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/dorothy-hamill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dorothy Hamill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/demis-hassabis-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Demis Hassabis, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lauryn-hill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lauryn Hill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-edmund-hillary/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Edmund Hillary</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/reid-hoffman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reid Hoffman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/khaled-hosseini/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Khaled Hosseini, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ron-howard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Howard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-hume/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Hume</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/louis-ignarro-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louis Ignarro, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/daniel-inouye/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Daniel K. Inouye</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jeremy-irons/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jeremy Irons</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Irving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/kazuo-ishiguro/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Kazuo Ishiguro</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-peter-jackson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Peter Jackson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/donald-c-johanson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-m-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank M. Johnson, Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/philip-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Philip C. Johnson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/chuck-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Chuck Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-earl-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Earl Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/quincy-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Quincy Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/beverly-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Beverly Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/dereck-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dereck Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/paul-kagame/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Kagame</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/thomas-keller-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Thomas Keller</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/anthony-m-kennedy/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony M. Kennedy</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carole-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carole King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/b-b-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">B.B. King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/coretta-scott-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Coretta Scott King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/henry-kissinger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry A. Kissinger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/willem-j-kolff/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wendy-kopp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wendy Kopp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/henry-r-kravis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry R. Kravis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nicholas-d-kristof/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nicholas D. Kristof</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mike-krzyzewski/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mike Krzyzewski</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ray-kurzwell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Kurzweil</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/eric-lander-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Eric S. Lander, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/robert-s-langer-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert S. Langer, Sc.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/richard-leakey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard E. Leakey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/leon-lederman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Lederman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/congressman-john-r-lewis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Congressman John R. Lewis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/maya-lin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Lin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George Lucas</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/norman-mailer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman Mailer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/peyton-manning/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peyton Manning</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wynton-marsalis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wynton Marsalis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John C. Mather, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/johnny-mathis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Mathis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ernst-mayr-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernst Mayr, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/willie-mays/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willie Mays</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-mccourt/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank McCourt</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-mccullough/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David McCullough</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/audra-mcdonald/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Audra McDonald</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-william-h-mcraven/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral William H. McRaven, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/w-s-merwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">W. S. Merwin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-a-michener/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James A. Michener</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/marvin-minsky-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Marvin Minsky, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mario J. Molina, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/n-scott-momaday-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">N. Scott Momaday, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/story-musgrave/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Story Musgrave, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ralph-nader/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ralph Nader</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/peggy-noonan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peggy Noonan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jessye-norman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jessye Norman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tommy-norris/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Thomas R. Norris, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/joyce-carol-oates/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joyce Carol Oates</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/pierre-omidyar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pierre Omidyar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/larry-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/arnold-palmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Arnold Palmer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/leon-panetta/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Panetta</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/rosa-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rosa Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/suzan-lori-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzan-Lori Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linus C. Pauling, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/shimon-peres/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Shimon Peres</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/itzhak-perlman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Itzhak Perlman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-david-petraeus/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General David H. Petraeus, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sidney-poitier/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sidney Poitier</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-colin-l-powell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General Colin L. Powell, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/harold-prince/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Harold Prince</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/venki-ramakrishnan-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Venki Ramakrishnan, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lord-martin-rees/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Martin Rees</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lloyd-richards/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lloyd Richards</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sally-ride-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally K. Ride, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sonny-rollins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonny Rollins</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/anthony-romero/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony Romero</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-rosenquist/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Rosenquist</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/pete-rozelle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pete Rozelle</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/bill-russell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Bill Russell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/albie-sachs/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Albie Sachs</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/oliver-sacks-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Oliver Sacks, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jonas-salk-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jonas Salk, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frederick-sanger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick Sanger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/george-b-schaller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George B. Schaller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/barry-scheck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Barry Scheck</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/richard-evans-schultes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard Evans Schultes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-h-norman-schwarzkopf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-schwarzman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen A. Schwarzman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/glenn-t-seaborg-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Glenn T. Seaborg, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/neil-sheehan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Neil Sheehan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-alan-shepard-jr/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral Alan B. Shepard, Jr., USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ellen-johnson-sirleaf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ellen Johnson Sirleaf</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carlos-slim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Slim Helú</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frederick-w-smith/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick W. Smith</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-sondheim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Sondheim</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sonia-sotomayor/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonia Sotomayor</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wole-soyinka/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wole Soyinka</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/esperanza-spalding/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Esperanza Spalding</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/martha-stewart/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Martha Stewart</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-james-b-stockdale/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral James B. Stockdale, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/hilary-swank/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Hilary Swank</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/amy-tan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Amy Tan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/dame-kiri-te-kanawa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Kiri Te Kanawa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/edward-teller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Edward Teller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/twyla-tharp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Twyla Tharp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wayne-thiebaud/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wayne Thiebaud</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lt-michael-e-thornton-usn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Michael E. Thornton, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/charles-h-townes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Charles H. Townes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-trimble/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Trimble</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ted-turner/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert Edward (Ted) Turner</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/desmond-tutu/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Archbishop Desmond Tutu</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-updike/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Updike</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/gore-vidal/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Gore Vidal</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/antonio-villaraigosa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Antonio Villaraigosa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lech-walesa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lech Walesa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/herschel-walker/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Herschel Walker</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-d-watson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James D. Watson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/andrew-weil-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Andrew Weil, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/leslie-h-wexner/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leslie H. Wexner</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/elie-wiesel/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Elie Wiesel</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/edward-o-wilson-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Edward O. Wilson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/oprah-winfrey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Oprah Winfrey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tom-wolfe/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tom Wolfe</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-wooden/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Wooden</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/bob-woodward/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Bob Woodward</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/shinya-yamanaka-m-d-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Shinya Yamanaka, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-chuck-yeager/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General Chuck Yeager, USAF</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20190119173032/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/andrew-young/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Andrew J. 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