Julian Barnes

Julian Patrick Barnes (born 19 January 1946) is an

English writer. He won the Man Booker Prize in 2011 Julian Barnes
with The Sense of an Ending, having been shortlisted
three times previously with Flaubert's Parrot,
England, England, and Arthur & George. Barnes has
also written crime fiction under the pseudonym Dan
Kavanagh (having married Pat Kavanagh).[1] In
addition to novels, Barnes has published collections of
essays and short stories, as well as two memoirs and a
nonfiction book, The Man in the Red Coat, about
people of Belle Époque Paris in the arts.

In 2004, he became a Commandeur of L'Ordre des Arts

et des Lettres. His honours also include the Somerset
Maugham Award and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial
Prize. He was awarded the 2021 Jerusalem Prize.[2]
Barnes in 2019
Born 19 January 1946
Early life Leicester, England
Pen name Dan Kavanagh (crime fiction),
Barnes was born in Leicester, in the East Midlands of Edward Pygge
England, on 19 January 1946, although his family Occupation Writer
moved to the outer suburbs of London six weeks Alma mater Magdalen College, Oxford
afterwards.[3][4] Both of his parents were French
Genre Novels, short stories, essays,
teachers.[3][1] He has said that his support for Leicester
memoirs
City Football Club was, aged four or five, "a
Literary Postmodernism
sentimental way of hanging on" to his home city.[4] At movement
the age of 10, Barnes was told by his mother that he Notable Prix Femina
had "too much imagination".[3] awards 1992
Commandeur of L'Ordre des
In 1956, the family moved to Northwood, Middlesex,
Arts et des Lettres
the "Metroland" of his first novel.[3] He was educated 2004
at the City of London School from 1957 to 1964. He Man Booker Prize
then went on to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he 2011
studied modern languages.[5] After graduation, he Jerusalem Prize
worked for three years as a lexicographer for the 2021
Oxford English Dictionary supplement.[5] He then Spouse Pat Kavanagh
​​(m. 1979; died 2008)​
worked as a reviewer and literary editor for the New
Statesman and the New Review.[5] During his time at Website
the New Statesman, Barnes suffered from debilitating julianbarnes.com (http://julianbarnes.com)
shyness, about which he has said: "When there were
weekly meetings I would be paralysed into silence, and was thought of as the mute member of staff."[3]
From 1979 to 1986, he worked as a television critic, first for the New Statesman and then for The
Observer.[5]

Career
His first novel, Metroland, published in 1980, is the story of Christopher, a young man from the London
suburbs who travels to Paris, France, as a student, finally returning to London. The novel deals with
themes of idealism and sexual fidelity, and has the three-part structure that is a common recurrence in
Barnes's work. After reading the novel, Barnes's mother complained about the book's "bombardment" of
filth.[3]

His second novel, Before She Met Me (1982), features a darker narrative, a story of revenge by a jealous
historian who becomes obsessed with his second wife's past. Barnes's breakthrough novel, Flaubert's
Parrot (1984), departed from the traditional linear structure of his previous novels and featured a
fragmentary biographical-style story of an elderly doctor, Geoffrey Braithwaite, who focuses obsessively
on the life of Gustave Flaubert. About Flaubert, Barnes has said, "he's the writer whose words I most
carefully tend to weigh, who I think has spoken the most truth about writing."[6] Flaubert's Parrot was
published to great acclaim, especially in France, and it helped establish Barnes as a serious literary figure
when the novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.[7]

In 1986, Barnes published Staring at the Sun, a novel about a woman growing to maturity in postwar
England and dealing with issues of love, truth, and mortality. In 1989, Barnes published A History of the
World in 10½ Chapters, a nonlinear novel that uses a variety of writing styles to call into question
perceived notions of human history and knowledge itself.

During the 1980s, Barnes wrote four crime novels under the name "Dan Kavanagh" (Barnes had recently
married the literary agent Pat Kavanagh).[8] The novels centred around the main character Duffy, a
former police detective turned security advisor. Duffy is notable because he represents one of Britain's
first bisexual male detectives. Barnes has said the use of a pseudonym is "liberating in that you could
indulge any fantasies of violence you might have".[9] While Metroland, also published in 1980, took
Barnes eight years to write, Duffy and the rest of the Kavanagh novels typically took less than two weeks
each to put to paper—an experiment to test "what it would be like writing as fast as I possibly could in a
concentrated way".[10]

During the 1990s, Barnes wrote several additional novels and works of journalism. In 1991, he published
Talking It Over, about a contemporary love triangle, in which the three characters take turns to talk to the
reader, reflecting on common events. This was followed by a sequel published in 2000 called Love, etc,
which revisited the characters ten years on.[11] Barnes's novel The Porcupine (1992) again deals with a
historical theme as it depicts the trial of Stoyo Petkanov, the former leader of a collapsed Communist
country in Eastern Europe, as he stands trial for crimes against his country. England, England (1998) is a
humorous novel that explores the idea of national identity as the entrepreneur Sir Jack Pitman creates a
theme park on the Isle of Wight that resembles some of the tourist spots of England. Barnes is a keen
Francophile, and his 1996 book, Cross Channel, is a collection of 10 stories charting Britain's relationship
with France.[1] He also returned to the topic of France in Something to Declare, a collection of essays on
French subjects.
In 2003, Barnes undertook a rare acting role as the voice of Georges Simenon in a BBC Radio 4 series of
adaptations of Inspector Maigret stories.[12] Arthur & George (2005), a fictional account of a true crime
that was investigated by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, launched Barnes's career into the more popular
mainstream. It was the first of his novels to be featured on The New York Times bestsellers list for
Hardback Fiction.

Barnes's 11th novel, The Sense of an Ending, published by Jonathan Cape, was released on 4 August
2011.[13] In October of that year, the book was awarded the Man Booker Prize.[14] The judges took 31
minutes to decide the winner and head judge, Stella Rimington, said that The Sense of an Ending was a
"beautifully written book" and the panel thought it "spoke to humankind in the 21st Century."[14][15] The
Sense of an Ending also won the Europese Literatuurprijs and was on the New York Times Bestseller list
for several weeks.

In 2013, Barnes published Levels of Life. The first section of the work gives a history of early ballooning
and aerial photography, describing the work of Gaspard-Félix Tournachon. The second part is a short
story about Fred Burnaby and the French actor Sarah Bernhardt, both also balloonists. The third part is an
essay discussing Barnes's grief over the death of his wife, Pat Kavanagh (although she is not named):
"You put together two people who have not been put together before . . . Sometimes it works, and
something new is made, and the world is changed . . . I was thirty-two when we met, sixty-two when she
died. The heart of my life; the life of my heart."[16] In The Guardian, Blake Morrison said of the third
section: "Its resonance comes from all it doesn't say, as well as what it does; from the depth of love we
infer from the desert of grief."[17]

In 2013, Barnes took on the British government over its "mass closure of public libraries", Britain's "slip
down the world league table for literacy" and its "ideological worship of the market – as quasi-religious
as nature-worship – and an ever-widening gap between rich and poor".[18]

Personal life
Barnes's brother, Jonathan Barnes, is a philosopher specialising in ancient philosophy. Julian Barnes is a
patron of the human rights organisation Freedom from Torture, for which he has sponsored several
fundraising events, and Dignity in Dying, a campaign group for assisted dying.[19] He has lived in Tufnell
Park, north London, since 1983. Barnes is an agnostic.[20] Barnes married Pat Kavanagh, a literary agent,
in 1979. She died on 20 October 2008 of a brain tumour. Barnes wrote about his grief over his wife's
death in an essay in his 2013 book, Levels of Life.[17][1]

Awards and honours

1981: Somerset Maugham Award, winner, Metroland
1985: Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize
1986: E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters
1986: Prix Médicis Essai, winner, Flaubert's Parrot[21]
1992: Prix Femina Étranger, winner, Talking It Over
1993: Shakespeare Prize, Alfred Toepfer Foundation
2004: Austrian State Prize for European Literature[22]
 2004: Commandeur de L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Chevalier, 1988).
2008: San Clemente Literary Prize
2011: David Cohen Prize for Literature
2011: Man Booker Prize, winner, The Sense of an Ending
2011 Costa Book Awards, shortlist, The Sense of an Ending
2012: Europese Literatuurprijs
2015: Zinklar Award at the first annual Blixen Ceremony in Copenhagen
2016: Siegfried Lenz Prize[23]
2017: Officier in the Ordre National de la Légion d'Honneur[24]
2021: Jerusalem Prize[25]
2021: Yasnaya Polyana Prize (for Nothing to Be Frightened Of)[26]

List of works

Novels
Metroland (1980)
Before She Met Me (1982)
Flaubert's Parrot (1984) – shortlisted for the Booker Prize
Staring at the Sun (1986)
A History of the World in 10½ Chapters (1989)
Talking It Over (1991)
The Porcupine (1992)
England, England (1998) – shortlisted for the Booker Prize
Love, etc (2000) – sequel to Talking it Over
Arthur & George (2005) – shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize
The Sense of an Ending (2011) – winner of the Man Booker Prize
The Noise of Time (2016)
The Only Story (2018)
Elizabeth Finch (2022)[27]

Collections
Cross Channel (1996)
The Lemon Table (2004)
Pulse (2011)

Non-fiction
Letters from London (Picador, London, 1995) – journalism from The New Yorker, ISBN 0-
330-34116-2
Something to Declare (2002) – essays
The Pedant in the Kitchen (2003) – journalism on cooking
Nothing to Be Frightened Of (2008) – memoir
 Through the Window (2012) – 17 essays and a short story
A Life with Books (2012) – booklet
Levels of Life (2013) – memoir
Keeping an Eye Open: Essays on Art (October, 2015) – essays
The Man in the Red Coat (2019)

Works as Dan Kavanagh

Novels
Duffy (1980)
Fiddle City (1981)
Putting the Boot In (1985)
Going to the Dogs (1987)

Short story

"The 50p Santa. A Duffy Detective Story" (1985)[28]

As translator
Alphonse Daudet: In the Land of Pain (2002), translation of Daudet's La Doulou
Volker Kriegel: The Truth About Dogs (1988), translation of Kriegel's Kleine Hunde-Kunde
[1] (https://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do?tabs=moreTab&ct=display&fn
=search&doc=BLL01013261263&indx=2&recIds=BLL01013261263&recIdxs=1&elementId=
1&renderMode=poppedOut&displayMode=full&frbrVersion=&vl(drEndYear4)=Year&vl(drStar
tMonth4)=00&&dscnt=0&vl(1UIStartWith0)=contains&vl(1UIStartWith2)=contains&mode=Ad
vanced&vid=BLVU1&vl(2084770721UI3)=all_items&vl(boolOperator1)=AND&tab=local_tab
&vl(freeText1)=Kriegel&vl(drStartYear4)=Year&vl(drStartDay4)=00&dstmp=1647631282758
&frbg=&vl(2084770717UI1)=creator&scp.scps=scope%3A%28BLCONTENT%29&tb=t&vl(1
UIStartWith1)=contains&vl(2084770715UI0)=title&srt=rank&vl(boolOperator0)=AND&Submi
t=Search&vl(2084770716UI2)=any&vl(drEndMonth4)=00&vl(freeText2)=&vl(boolOperator2)
=AND&dum=true&vl(freeText0)=Truth%20About%20Dogs&vl(drEndDay4)=00)

See also
Edward Pygge, a pseudonym used by Barnes and others

References
1. Allardice, Lisa (26 October 2019). "Julian Barnes: 'Do you expect Europe to cut us a good
deal? It's so childish" (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/oct/26/julian-barnes-europe
-deal-interview-man-red-coat). The Guardian. Retrieved 27 October 2019.
2. "The Jerusalem Prize 2021 WINNER" (https://www.jbookforum.com/jerusalem-prize-winne
r/). Jbookforum.com. Retrieved 26 June 2021.
 3. Summerscale, Kate (1 March 2008). "Julian Barnes: Life as he knows it" (https://www.telegr
aph.co.uk/culture/donotmigrate/3671554/Julian-Barnes-Life-as-he-knows-it.html). The Daily
Telegraph. London. Retrieved 10 August 2011.
4. Barnes, Julian (5 August 2001). "My Team: Julian Barnes on Leicester City F.C." (https://we
b.archive.org/web/20121001153513/http://observer.guardian.co.uk/osm/story/0,,530805,00.
html) The Observer. Interviewed by Denis Campbell. London. Archived from the original (htt
p://observer.guardian.co.uk/osm/story/0,,530805,00.html) on 1 October 2012. Retrieved
22 October 2011.
5. "Julian Barnes Website: Biography of Julian Barnes" (https://web.archive.org/web/20110807
081743/http://www.julianbarnes.com/biography.html). Julianbarnes.com. Archived from the
original (http://www.julianbarnes.com/biography.html) on 7 August 2011. Retrieved
10 August 2011.
6. McGrath, Patrick. "Julian Barnes" (http://bombsite.com/issues/21/articles/980) Archived (http
s://web.archive.org/web/20121015163101/http://bombsite.com/issues/21/articles/980) 15
October 2012 at the Wayback Machine, BOMB Magazine Fall, 1987. Retrieved on 24
October 2012.
7. "The Booker Prize 1984 | The Booker Prizes" (https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-librar
y/prize-years/1984). thebookerprizes.com. Retrieved 11 June 2023.
8. Sutherland, John (17 July 1980). "Pseud's Corner" (https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v02/n14/
john-sutherland/pseud-s-corner). London Review of Books. 02 (14). ISSN 0260-9592 (http
s://search.worldcat.org/issn/0260-9592).
9. Dugdale, John (4 April 2014). "Julian Barnes's pseudonymous detective novels stay under
cover" (https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/apr/04/julian-barnes-detective-
novels-duffy-dan-kavanagh). The Guardian. Retrieved 2 May 2018.
10. Guignery, Vanessa (2006). The Fiction of Julian Barnes. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 29. ISBN 1-
4039-9060-3.
11. "Julian Barnes: Love, etc" (http://www.julianbarnes.com/books/love.html).
www.julianbarnes.com. Retrieved 11 June 2023.
12. Simon, O'Hagan (1 December 2002). "Julian Barnes: I may not like it much. But I still live
here" (https://web.archive.org/web/20081201081134/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/me
dia/julian-barnes-i-may-not-like-it-much-but-i-still-live-here-615481.html). The Independent.
London. Archived from the original (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/julian-barne
s-i-may-not-like-it-much-but-i-still-live-here-615481.html) on 1 December 2008. Retrieved
17 September 2011.
13. Ellwood, Pip (14 August 2011). "Julian Barnes – The Sense of an Ending" (https://web.archi
ve.org/web/20111011210221/http://entertainment-focus.com/book-article/julian-barnes-the-s
ense-of-an-ending). Entertainment Focus. Archived from the original (http://www.entertainm
ent-focus.com/book-article/julian-barnes-the-sense-of-an-ending) on 11 October 2011.
Retrieved 18 October 2011.
14. Masters, Tim (18 October 2011). "Man Booker Prize won by Julian Barnes at fourth attempt"
(https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-15361273). BBC News. BBC. Retrieved
18 October 2011.
15. Singh, Anita (18 October 2011). "Julian Barnes wins the 2011 Man Booker Prize" (https://ww
w.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booker-prize/8834464/Julian-Barnes-wins-the-2011-Man-B
ooker-Prize.html). The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
16. Bhattacharya, Soumya (25 April 2013). "Julian Barnes: "I do believe in grudge-bearing" " (htt
p://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2013/04/i-do-believe-grudge-bearing%E2%80%9
D). The New Statesman. Retrieved 15 May 2013.
17. Morrison, Blake (10 April 2013). "Levels of Life by Julian Barnes- review" (https://www.thegu
ardian.com/books/2013/apr/10/levels-life-julian-barnes-review). The Guardian. London.
Retrieved 15 May 2013.
18. Flood, Alison (12 April 2013). "Julian Barnes criticises Britain's 'philistine' approach to arts"
(https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/apr/12/julian-barnes-britain-philistine-arts). The
Guardian. London. Retrieved 12 April 2013.
19. "Patrons" (https://www.dignityindying.org.uk/about-us/patrons/). Dignityindying.org.uk.
Retrieved 26 January 2022.
20. Keillor, Garrison (3 October 2008). "Dying of the Light" (https://web.archive.org/web/201801
05153613/http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/books/review/Keillor-t.html). The New York
Times. Archived from the original (https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/books/review/Keillor
-t.html) on 5 January 2018. "Julian Barnes, an atheist turned agnostic"
21. " 'La France est mon second berceau': Biographie de Julian Barnes" (http://evene.lefigaro.fr/
celebre/biographie/julian-barnes-14880.php). Le Figaro (in French). 19 January 1946.
Retrieved 11 May 2023.
22. "Österreichische StaatspreisträgerInnen für Europäische Literatur" (https://archive.today/201
20529161211/http://www.oesterreich-bibliotheken.at/preistraegerinnen.php?preis=preise_eu
literatur). Archived from the original (http://www.oesterreich-bibliotheken.at/preistraegerinne
n.php?preis=preise_euliteratur) on 29 May 2012. Retrieved 15 March 2013.
23. "Siegfried Lenz Preis 2016 geht an Julian Barnes" (http://www.siegfriedlenz-stiftung.org/neui
gkeiten/siegfried-lenz-preis-2016-geht-an-julian-barnes/). Siegfriedlenz.stiftung.org. 29 June
2016. Retrieved 4 July 2016.
24. "Julian Barnes: Biography" (http://www.julianbarnes.com/bio/index.html).
www.julianbarnes.com. Retrieved 11 June 2023.
25. "2021 Winner – The Jerusalem International Book Forum" (https://www.jbookforum.com/jeru
salem-prize-winner/). Jbookforum.com. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
26. "Julian Barnes: Biography" (http://www.julianbarnes.com/bio/index.html).
www.julianbarnes.com. Retrieved 11 June 2023.
27. Massie, Allan (1 January 2022). "2022 Arts Preview: The Year Ahead in Books" (https://www.
scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/books/2022-arts-preview-the-year-ahead-in-books-348958
6). Scotsman.com. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
28. Guignery (2006). The Fiction of Julian Barnes. p. 28.

Further reading
Peter Childs, Julian Barnes (Contemporary British Novelists), Manchester University Press
(2011)
Sebastian Groes & Peter Childs, eds. Julian Barnes (Contemporary Critical Perspectives),
Continuum (2011)
Vanessa Guignery & Ryan Roberts, eds. Conversations with Julian Barnes, University Press
of Mississippi (2009)
Vanessa Guignery, The Fiction of Julian Barnes: A Reader's Guide to Essential Criticism,
Palgrave Macmillan (2006)
Matthew Pateman, Julian Barnes: Writers and Their Work, Northcote House, (2002)
Bruce Sesto, Language, History, And Metanarrative in the Fiction of Julian Barnes, Peter
Lang (2001)
Merritt Moseley, Understanding Julian Barnes, University of South Carolina Press (1997)

External links
Official Website of Julian Barnes (http://www.julianbarnes.com)
 Official Website of Dan Kavanagh (pseudonym) (http://www.dankavanagh.com)
Julian Barnes (https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/julian-barnes) at British Council:
Literature
Publisher's Website (http://www.arthurandgeorge.com) – includes facts about Barnes and
Arthur & George
The Oxonian Review on Levels of Life (https://web.archive.org/web/20130506232620/http://
www.oxonianreview.org/wp/balloons-for-ballast/)[usurped]
Interview by the Oxonian Review (2008) (https://web.archive.org/web/20111001065053/htt
p://www.oxonianreview.org/wp/nothing-to-be-frightened-of-an-interview-with-julian-barnes/)
[usurped]

Guardian Books "Author Page" (http://books.guardian.co.uk/authors/author/0,5917,-18,00.ht

ml) – with profile and links to further articles.
Julian Barnes (https://web.archive.org/web/http://www.iblist.com/author6031.htm) at the
Internet Book List
Interview (https://web.archive.org/web/20061025022210/http://bbcworld.com/content/templa
te_clickpage.asp?pageid=2865) on BBC HARDtalk Extra programme – broadcast on 22
September 2006
Audio interview from Writing Lab (http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/culture/lite
rature-and-creative-writing/creative-writing/julian-barnes-on-starting-writing) on OpenLearn
"Julian Barnes: Life as he knows it" (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/donotmigrate/3671
554/Julian-Barnes-Life-as-he-knows-it.html)
"Julian Barnes, The Art of Fiction No. 165" (http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/562/the
-art-of-fiction-no-165-julian-barnes). The Paris Review (Interview). No. 157. Interviewed by
Shusha Guppy. Winter 2000.
"Julian Barnes Interview" (http://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/bookworm/julian-barne
s/). Bookworm (Interview). Interviewed by Michael Silverblatt. KCRW. March 1992.
Portraits of Julian Barnes (https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person.php?LinkID=mp
17923) at the National Portrait Gallery, London

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