Benjamin Myers first came across the Booker prize-winning author Pat Barker when he was seven or eight and, though he didn’t read her till much later, she made an impression, even then. “I was on holiday with my parents and found a copy of Union Street, Pat’s first novel,” he recalls. “I asked my mum about it and she said: ‘Oh, not only is that set round our way but the author is from Yorkshire.’ I was so struck by that. It’s partly what made me want to be a writer.”
A decade ago the two became acquainted, brought together by an old friend of Myers who was seeing Barker’s daughter. By then, Myers was establishing himself as one of the most electrifying voices in British fiction, setting most of his work, such as the 2013 Gordon Burn prize-winning novel Pig Iron, in his native north-east. Barker, who has published 15 books over a stellar 40-year career, including the Regeneration trilogy and more recently a series of novels reimagining the Iliad from a female perspective, continues to be an inspiration for him.
