Julian Barnes
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Julian Patrick Barnes (born 19 January 1946) is an English writer. He won the
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]
Early life
Barnes was born in
Career
His first novel, Metroland, is the story of Christopher, a young man from the London suburbs who travels to Paris 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 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 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]
Staring at the Sun followed in 1986, another ambitious novel about a woman growing to maturity in post-war England and dealing with issues of love, truth and mortality. In 1989, Barnes published A History of the World in 10½ Chapters, which is also a non-linear novel, and uses a variety of writing styles to call into question the 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
In 2003, Barnes undertook a rare acting role as the voice of
Barnes's eleventh novel,
In 2013 Barnes published
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
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 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
- 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
- Man Booker Prize
- 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 (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 (2020)
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]
See also
- Edward Pygge, a pseudonym used by Barnes and others
References
- ^ a b c d Allardice, Lisa (26 October 2019). "Julian Barnes: 'Do you expect Europe to cut us a good deal? It's so childish". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 October 2019.
- ^ "The Jerusalem Prize 2021 WINNER". Jbookforum.com. Retrieved 26 June 2021.
- ^ a b c d e f Summerscale, Kate (1 March 2008). "Julian Barnes: Life as he knows it". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 10 August 2011.
- ^ a b Denis Campbell. "My Team: Julian Barnes on Leicester City F.C." The Observer. London. Archived from the original on 1 October 2012. Retrieved 22 October 2011.
- ^ a b c d "Julian Barnes Website: Biography of Julian Barnes". Julianbarnes.com. Archived from the original on 7 August 2011. Retrieved 10 August 2011.
- BOMB MagazineFall, 1987. Retrieved on 24 October 2012.
- ^ "The Booker Prize 1984 | The Booker Prizes". thebookerprizes.com. Retrieved 11 June 2023.
- ISSN 0260-9592.
- ^ Dugdale, John (4 April 2014). "Julian Barnes's pseudonymous detective novels stay under cover". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 May 2018.
- ISBN 1-4039-9060-3, p. 29, 2006
- ^ "Julian Barnes: Love, etc". www.julianbarnes.com. Retrieved 11 June 2023.
- ^ Simon, O'Hagan (1 December 2002). "Julian Barnes: I may not like it much. But I still live here". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 1 December 2008. Retrieved 17 September 2011.
- ^ Ellwood, Pip (14 August 2011). "Julian Barnes – The Sense of an Ending". Entertainment Focus. Archived from the original on 11 October 2011. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
- ^ a b Masters, Tim (18 October 2011). "Man Booker Prize won by Julian Barnes at fourth attempt". BBC News. BBC. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
- ^ Singh, Anita (18 October 2011). "Julian Barnes wins the 2011 Man Booker Prize". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
- ^ Bhattacharya, Soumya (25 April 2013). "Julian Barnes: "I do believe in grudge-bearing"". The New Statesman. Retrieved 15 May 2013.
- ^ a b Morrison, Blake (10 April 2013). "Levels of Life by Julian Barnes- review". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 15 May 2013.
- ^ Flood, Alison (12 April 2013). "Julian Barnes criticises Britain's 'philistine' approach to arts". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 12 April 2013.
- ^ "Patrons". Dignityindying.org.uk. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
- ^ Keillor, Garrison (3 October 2008). "Dying of the Light". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 5 January 2018.
Julian Barnes, an atheist turned agnostic
- ^ ""La France est mon second berceau": Biographie de Julian Barnes". Le Figaro (in French). 19 January 1946. Retrieved 11 May 2023.
- ^ "Österreichische StaatspreisträgerInnen für Europäische Literatur". Archived from the original on 29 May 2012. Retrieved 15 March 2013.
- ^ "Siegfried Lenz Preis 2016 geht an Julian Barnes". Siegfriedlenz.stiftung.org. Retrieved 4 July 2016.
- ^ "Julian Barnes: Biography". www.julianbarnes.com. Retrieved 11 June 2023.
- ^ "2021 Winner – The Jerusalem International Book Forum". Jbookforum.com. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
- ^ "Julian Barnes: Biography". www.julianbarnes.com. Retrieved 11 June 2023.
- ^ "2022 Arts Preview: The Year Ahead in Books". Scotsman.com. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
- ISBN 1-4039-9060-3, publ. 2006
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
- Official Website of Dan Kavanagh (pseudonym)
- Julian Barnes at British Council: Literature
- Publisher's Website – includes facts about Barnes and Arthur & George
- The Oxonian Review on Levels of Life[usurped]
- Interview by the Oxonian Review (2008)[usurped]
- Guardian Books "Author Page" – with profile and links to further articles.
- Julian Barnes at the Internet Book List
- Interview on BBC HARDtalk Extra programme – broadcast on 22 September 2006
- Audio interview from Writing Lab on OpenLearn
- "Julian Barnes: Life as he knows it"
- "Julian Barnes, The Art of Fiction No. 165". The Paris Review (Interview). No. 157. Interviewed by Shusha Guppy. Winter 2000.
- "Julian Barnes Interview". Bookworm (Interview). Interviewed by Michael Silverblatt. KCRW. March 1992.
- Portraits of Julian Barnes at the National Portrait Gallery, London