Paul Murray is an Irish novelist known for his tragicomic novels. He is best known for Skippy Dies (2010) and The Bee Sting (2023), both of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Murray wrote his first novel — An Evening of Long Goodbyes — while doing a creative writing MA at the University of East Anglia.
Paul Murray was born in Dublin, Ireland. His father was a professor of Anglo-Irish drama at University College Dublin, and his mother was a teacher. He was educated at Blackrock College, a private school in the south of Dublin, which later influenced the setting of Skippy Dies. He studied English Literature at Trinity College Dublin before completing a Masters in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.
After university, Murray worked as an English teacher in Barcelona. He describes this as "a brief and unhappy stint teaching English to a Catalan businessman who pointed out many errors in my grammar that I had not previously known about". He later turned to writing full-time.
Murray's debut novel, An Evening of Long Goodbyes (2003), was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Prize. His second novel, Skippy Dies (2010), was longlisted for the Booker Prize and became his breakthrough. The novel follows the students and staff of Seabrook College, a fictional Catholic boarding school. The story begins with the death of Daniel "Skippy" Juster and explores the events leading up to it.
Murray originally wrote it as a short story but expanded it into a novel. The book was praised for its blend of humour and tragedy and was listed as one of Time magazine's top ten books of 2010.
His third novel, The Mark and the Void (2015), was a satire set in the world of banking. It was a joint winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize and appeared on Time's list of the best fiction books of the year.
In 2023, Murray published The Bee Sting. The novel follows the Barnes family, once wealthy but struggling after the financial crash. The father, Dickie, is obsessed with building a survival bunker. His wife, Imelda, sells their possessions online while dealing with past traumas. Their daughter, Cassie, navigates a toxic friendship at university, and their son, PJ, plans to run away.
The novel switches between characters and uses different writing styles, including a section without punctuation. The Bee Sting was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the Irish Book Award for Novel of the Year. It also won the inaugural Nero Book Award and was included in the New York Times list of the best books of 2023.
Paul Murray also wrote the screenplay for the 2018 Irish film Metal Heart, directed by Hugh O'Conor.
