Damian Barr is an award-winning writer and broadcaster described by the Guardian as ‘the best connected man in publishing’.
Damian’s memoir Maggie & Me was a Radio 4 Book of the Week and Sunday Times Memoir of the Year. His novel You Will Be Safe Here was a Radio 4 Book at Bedtime and Book of the Year in the Observer, Guardian and Financial Times. Damian has contributed to many collections, including Common People, written plays and essays for radio, and adapted Maggie and Me for the National Theatre of Scotland. Damian presents the BBC’s The Big Scottish Book Club. For fifteen glorious years, from 2008 to 2023, Damian hosted his Literary Salon which celebrated emerging and established writers both online and in events across the world.
Damian’s latest novel The Two Roberts (Canongate) was published in September 2025. It has already been chosen as a BBC Radio 2 Book Club Pick and a best fiction book of 2025 for the Guardian, The Observer, The Herald and the BBC. The Times hailed it as ‘Deeply affecting … A vivid and moving portrait’.
In 2020 Damian completed a PhD in Creative Writing at Lancaster and was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL). In 2021 he was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE).
