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12 quotes by Pat Barker

Pat Barker CBE, FRSL (born 8 May 1943) is an English writer and novelist. She has won many awards for her fiction, which centres on themes of memory, trauma, survival and recovery. Her work is described as direct, blunt and plainspoken. In 2012, The Observer named the Regeneration Trilogy as one of "The 10 best historical novels".
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Fiction should be about moral dilemmas that are so bloody difficult that the author doesn't know the answer.

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That balance between involvement and detachment is what novelists do. It's the ideal relationship between a novelist and a character, I think... →

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I wanted to be a novelist from a very early age - 11 or 12 - but I don't think I ever thought I would write historical fiction. I never thought I... →

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I wasn't thinking of a sequel when I finished 'Life Class.' What changed my mind was the perception that the characters had a lot of life... →

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I didn't belong to the sort of family where the children's classics were laid on. I went to the public library and read everything I could... →

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Culturally, the First World War is the war that stands in for other wars.

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My grandmother's first husband was a spiritualist medium. What fascinates me about that is the balance between conviction and sincerity and... →

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When writing about historical characters I try to be as accurate as possible, and in particular not to misrepresent the view they held. With a real... →

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Being a writer is a poverty trap. I mean, it's a terrible profession.

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'Undertones of War' by Edmund Blunden seems to get less attention than the memoirs of Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves, but it is a great... →

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What I hate in fiction is when the author knows better than the characters what they should do.

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When I'm writing the first draft, I'm writing in a very slovenly way: anything to get the outline of the story on paper.

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