Shroud

Axel Vander, a distinguished intellectual and elderly academic, is not the man he seems. When a letter arrives out of the blue, threatening to unveil his secrets - and carefully concealed identity - Vander travels to Turin to meet its author. There, muddled by age and alcohol, unable always to distinguish fact from fiction, Vander comes face to face with the woman who has the knowledge to unmask him.

"Shroud will not be easily surpassed for its combination of wit, moral complexity and compassion. It is hard to see what more a novel could do."  -  Irish Times

"Banville writes with such assured subtlety, however, that he forces us to ask his questions."  -  Benjamin Markovits, London Review of Books

John Banville is the author of more than fifteen novels, a short story collection, and several mysteries written under the pseudonym Benjamin Black. His novel The Sea won the 2005 Booker Prize. His novel Ancient Light won the Irish Book Award. In addition to winning The Man Booker Prize 2005, he was also shortlisted for his entire body of work, for The Man Booker International Prize 2007. In 2011, Banville won the Franz Kafka Prize.