Report an issue
Tell us what's wrong and we'll take a look.
Thanks – we got it. We'll review and follow up if needed.
The Booker Prize–winning author of The Sea re-creates the life of the Renaissance mathematical genius Johannes Kepler and his incredible drive to chart the orbits of the planets and the geometry of the universe.
Johannes Kepler, born in 1571 in southern Germany, was one of the world’s greatest mathematicians and astronomers. The novel Kepler by John Banville brilliantly re-creates his life and his work, which laid the foundation of the universe even while he was being driven from exile to exile by religious and domestic strife. At the same time, it illuminates the harsh realities of the Renaissance world, rich in imaginative daring but rooted in poverty, squalor and the tyrannical power of emperors.
"What Banville writes is historically accurate, but his [are] a novelist's truth, and…a lover's prose." —Newsweek
John Banville
JOHN BANVILLE was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. He is the author of numerous novels, including The Sea, which won the 2005 Booker Prize, and the DI Quirke novels written under the pseudonym Benjamin Black. In 2011 he was awarded the Franz Kafka Prize, in 2013 he was awarded the Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Achievement in Irish Literature and in 2014 he won the Prince of Asturias Award, Spain’s most important literary prize. He lives in Dublin.
More by John Banville
Why Readwise Books?
Readwise Books is an ebook & audiobook platform that automatically logs how much you and your friends read, making it fun and easy to read more. Learn more →