Barney Norris

Norris was born in Chichester in West Sussex, later moving to Wiltshire where he attended Bishop Wordsworth's School, Salisbury. He read English at Keble College, Oxford, and creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London.

After leaving university, he set up the touring Up in Arms Theatre Company[3] with the director Alice Hamilton, and worked in the theatre as assistant to Thelma Holt, Michael Frayn, Peter Gill and Max Stafford-Clark, before becoming a full-time writer. He is an associate artist at Oxford Playhouse[4] and the Watermill Theatre,[5] Martin Esslin playwright in residence at Keble College, Oxford, teaches creative writing at the University of Oxford and writes regularly in the national press, including book reviews for the Guardian.

Norris's early plays were produced by his company Up in Arms, usually on tour and often in partnership with other theatres.[6] Following the success of his first full-length play Visitors,[7] he began to write for other companies, and has since worked with Salisbury Playhouse,[8] the Bush Theatre,[9] Oxford Playhouse, the Arcola Theatre, the Royal and Derngate, Out of Joint and the Bridge Theatre, among others. His first novel, Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain, was published in 2016; he has since published two other novels and two books of non-fiction.

• 2014 – Critics' Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright for Visitors
• 2015 – Selected as one of the Evening Standard's Progress 1000
• 2016 – Betty Trask Award for Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain
• 2018 – One Book Award for Turning For Home
• 2018 – Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
• 2019 – Award for Excellence in International Theatre from the International Theatre Institute

• Official website