The Newer World

For fans of Train Dreams, All the Pretty Horses and West, an immersive and unforgettable novel about one man's life in the aftermath of the American Civil War.

An immersive, sweeping and unforgettable novel of one man's life in the aftermath of the American Civil War.

I knew as I made my way home that there was no home. All the old things . . . were gone forever.

Against this rapidly shifting landscape, Tennyson Bouguereau - freed man, devoted brother, nascent singer, conflicted soldier and wanted man - journeys to find meaning and belonging. From the relative safety of home in Tennessee with his sister Rosalee, he is offered the possibility of a whole new life in Nashville, until a surprising trip to Victorian England changes everything.

Exquisitely rendered, and with a rich cast of characters,The Newer World is a lyrical, visceral novel about what it is to survive, and what might be lost along the way.

'A masterly work of historical witness and moral reckoning' - OBSERVER, Fiction to look out for in '26

'His work reminds us how much we need these rare gifts of the natural storyteller' - TESSA HADLEY

'There's a beautiful looseness to the novel, almost a wildness, the mark of a true, natural storyteller. It's easily among his best works' - KEVIN BARRY

'Barry records a life between worlds, in tender, elegiac prose. This is the novelist at his best: a masterly work of historical witness and moral reckoning' - ALEX PRESTON, Observer, 'Fiction to Watch in 2026'

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF OLD GOD'S TIME

About the Author

Sebastian Barry was born in Dublin in 1955. The 2018-21 Laureate for Irish Fiction, his novels have twice won the Costa Book of the Year award, the Independent Booksellers Award and the Walter Scott Prize. He had two consecutive novels shortlisted for the Booker Prize, A Long Long Way (2005) and the top ten bestseller The Secret Scripture (2008), and has also won the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Prize, the Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. He lives in County Wicklow.