War and Memory
Pat Barker, Another World
, Another World lecture
– Barker’s life and career
– Importance of war in Barker’s fiction, esp.
WWI
– Another World:
• Prevalence of violence and war
• Geordie’s war trauma
, Pat Barker
• Born May 1943, Thornaby-on-Tees
• Told that her father was an RAF
pilot killed in WWII – a myth
invented by mother, who did not
know real identity of father
• Brought up mainly by grandparents.
Fascinated by grandfather’s
bayonet wound from WWI. Like
Geordie in AW, died of cancer, but
blamed illness on wound. ‘In each
case the man needs to believe that
the war is what's killing him’.
• Attended grammar school, 1955-
1962; read International History at
London School of Economics,
1962-1965.
• Returned to North East to teach
• First novel: Union Street (1982);
breakthrough: Regeneration
(1991); Another World (1998)
Pat Barker, Another World
, Another World lecture
– Barker’s life and career
– Importance of war in Barker’s fiction, esp.
WWI
– Another World:
• Prevalence of violence and war
• Geordie’s war trauma
, Pat Barker
• Born May 1943, Thornaby-on-Tees
• Told that her father was an RAF
pilot killed in WWII – a myth
invented by mother, who did not
know real identity of father
• Brought up mainly by grandparents.
Fascinated by grandfather’s
bayonet wound from WWI. Like
Geordie in AW, died of cancer, but
blamed illness on wound. ‘In each
case the man needs to believe that
the war is what's killing him’.
• Attended grammar school, 1955-
1962; read International History at
London School of Economics,
1962-1965.
• Returned to North East to teach
• First novel: Union Street (1982);
breakthrough: Regeneration
(1991); Another World (1998)
