Night Boat to Tangier

A gangster dramedy about love, mutual betrayals, and guilt, full of dark humor and lyricism.

Kevin Barry is an Irish writer, winner of the Dublin Prize and the Costa Prize.

For almost all of his youth, Barry spent time traveling, and by age 36 he had changed 17 addresses. He lived in Cork, Santa Barbara, and Liverpool before settling in Sligo, buying and restoring the rundown Royal barracks of the Irish police. The decision to live a stationary life came to Barry with difficulties—because it was getting harder and harder to haul around an ever-growing number of books.

In Cork, Kevin Barry worked as a freelance journalist, running a regular column in The Irish Examiner. Burning with passion to become a writer, he bought himself a house on wheels, parked it in a field in West Cork, and dedicated about six months to writing what he himself called “a terrible novel.”

He referred to himself as “a raving egomaniac,” “one of those monsters made up of 99 percent of the most real and pure ego,” who is very anxious and eager to be loved—adored by readers to the point of becoming an unrelenting stalker. Barry also said he wouldn’t be happy until he won the Nobel Prize. He admitted that he hid in bookstores and watched to see “whether anyone would fall for his bait” with their own eyes. He even posted copies of his novel on top of newly arrived books by other authors.

His efforts weren’t in vain: in 2007 Barry won the Rooney Prize for the series of short stories There Are Little Kingdoms.

The Dublin Prize-winning novel “City of Boen” was released in 2011. It was followed by the collection of short stories Dark Lies the Island.

After receiving the award, Barry said: “Everything’s fine as long as the book stays in the center of everyone’s attention and makes people talk about it. The prize, along with the attached money, adds prestige.”