John Banville is the distinguished author of 15 novels including, most recently, The Infinities, as well as The Sea, winner of the 2005 Man Booker Prize.  A metafictionist who has been compared to Beckett and Nabokov, Banville first gained international prominence through a series of four books, Dr. Copernicus, Kepler, The Newton Letter, and Mefisto, all linked by a common interest in math or astronomy.  Other works include a trilogy, The Book of Evidence, Ghosts, and Athena; and The Untouchable, loosely based on the life of Royal art curator and spy Anthony Blunt, regarded by some as Banville’s finest novel.   He is also the author of a series of popular mystery novels penned under the pseudonym Benjamin Black.  He has been described as “without question, one of the greatest living masters of English-language prose.”