Overview

• Barker was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire on June 13, 2025, in recognition of her services to literature, nearly 25 years after receiving a CBE in 2000.
• She feared the high-quality envelope contained an angry income tax notice from HMRC before realising it came from the Palace.
• Barker launched her writing career in her late 30s after studying international history at the London School of Economics and published her debut novel Union Street in 1982.
• Her most celebrated works include the Regeneration Trilogy—winner of the 1995 Booker Prize—and the Woman of Troy trilogy, which focuses on women’s experiences and trauma in wartime.
• Born in Thornaby-on-Tees and raised by her grandparents, Barker draws on her family’s World War II experiences to explore trauma and memory in her novels.