WRITER

Barry Unsworth

1930 - 2012

Barry Unsworth

Barry Unsworth FRSL (10 August 1930 – 4 June 2012) was an English writer known for his historical fiction. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Barry Unsworth has received more than 123,952 page views. His biography is available in 20 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 18 in 2019). Barry Unsworth is the 6,395th most popular writer (down from 5,930th in 2019), the 5,575th most popular biography from United Kingdom (down from 5,418th in 2019) and the 637th most popular British Writer.

Memorability Metrics

120k
Page Views (PV)
41.35
Historical Popularity Index (HPI)
20
Languages Editions (L)
2.89
Effective Languages (L*)
3.15
Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

Pascali's Island

Fiction, historical, Greece, fiction, Fiction, historical, general

1980

Stone Virgin

Art, Fiction, Fiction, general

1985

Losing Nelson

Fiction, Historiography, Influence

As he writes on Nelson, a British biographer re-lives his battles and romances. But he is obsessed by a black mark against his hero, Nelson's massacre of Neapolitans. The biographer undertakes a trip to Naples and receives an explanation.

1999

Morality play

Catholic Church, Catholics, Clergy

It is a cold winter in the fourteenth century, and a young renegade priest, Nicholas Barber, joins an acting troupe who prepare to play the drama of their lives. Breaking the tradition of only performing religious plays, the group's charismatic leader, Martin, wants them to enact the brutal murder that has torn apart the rural village of which they have wandered. A young boy has been found dead, and the Weaver's daughter has been arrested and stands to be hung as the troupe delve deeper into the circumstances of the murder, they find themselves entering into a dark world of intrigue that may prove their undoing. Taught and suspenseful, Morality Play is an exquisite work that captivates by its power, while opening up the distant past to the new reader.

1995

The songs of the kings

Humorous stories, Greek Mythology, Greeks

"As the harsh wind holds the Greek fleet trapped in the straits at Aulis, frustration and political impotence turn into a desire for the blood of a young and innocent woman - blood that will appease the gods and allow the troops to set sail. And when Iphigeneia, Agamemnon's beloved daughter, is brought to the coast under false pretenses, and when a knife is fashioned out of the finest and most precious of materials, it looks as if the ships will soon be on their way. But can a father really go to these lengths to secure political victory, and can a daughter willingly give up her life for the worldly ambitions of her father?". "Throwing off the heroic values we expect of them, Barry Unsworth's mythic characters embrace the political ethos of the twenty-first century and speak in words we recognize as our own. The blowhard Odysseus warns the men to not "marginalize" Agamemnon and to "strike while the bronze is hot." High-sounding principles clash with private motives, and dark comedy ensues."--BOOK JACKET.

2002

Sacred Hunger

Florida, fiction, Fiction, historical, general

2004

Page views of Barry Unsworths by language

Over the past year Barry Unsworth has had the most page views in the English wikipedia edition with 12,783 views, followed by Chinese (1,158), and Russian (1,065). In terms of yearly growth of page views the top 3 wikpedia editions are Armenian (97.08%), Latin (74.30%), and Arabic (44.10%)