The Latest Breaking News from John Boyne

The Weight of Angels by John Boyne review – what if Oscar Wilde had lived?

The great Irish writer died, a broken man, at only 46. Imagining a second act for him is a great idea – but the results are sentimental and unconvincing

The Guardian - UK · Oct 12

The Elements by John Boyne review – intertwined tales of trauma

Four novellas about damaged people weighed down by the crimes they have suffered draw you efficiently in, but the cumulative effect is numbing

The Guardian - UK · Oct 6, 2025

Polari book prize cancelled after row over gender-critical novelist

Organisers of the award for LGBTQ+ writers have paused the prize this year, after controversy over the longlisting of John Boyne meant it was ‘overshadowed by hurt and anger’

The Guardian - UK · Aug 19, 2025

Water by John Boyne audiobook review – confronting grief and betrayal

A woman tries to escape her painful past in this moving novella from the author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

The Guardian - UK · Jan 3, 2025

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas author: ‘If you want the facts of the Holocaust, don’t read a novel’

Author John Boyne appeared on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Desert Island Discs’ where he spoke about the criticism of his 2006 book

The Independent UK · May 26, 2024

In brief: Earth; Vassal State; The Penguin History of Modern Spain – review

John Boyne’s pacy novella about an Irish footballer caught up in a sex scandal; Angus Hanton’s exploration of our ‘special relationship’ with America; and a cliche-free portrait of Spain

The Guardian - UK · Apr 28, 2024

Water by John Boyne review – a cathartic journey of recovery

A woman retreats to a remote Irish island following the collapse of her life, in the first of a series named for the four elements

The Guardian - UK · Nov 23, 2023

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is now an opera – the case for adaptating the book that the Auschwitz Museum said 'should be avoided'

Irish novelist John Boyne published his novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas in 2006. The protagonist, eight-year-old German boy Bruno, has no idea that his father is the kommandant of a concentration camp during the second world war. Bruno and his family are sent to live with their father…

The Conversation · Jan 27, 2023

Holocaust remembrance: we must beware of well-intentioned mythmaking as events pass out of living memory

In ancient Rome, the saeculum, or “the age”, was the span of living memory, the telling of an event passed down from the oldest to the youngest. Recognising this profound idea, some have worried that the memory of the Holocaust will fade as the generation of those who survived it…

The Conversation · Jan 27, 2023

Review: 'All the Broken Places,' by John Boyne

FICTION: A darkly compelling novel about a woman forced to confront the sins of her past.

Tribune News Service · Dec 7, 2022