Julian Barnes

Born 1946. British novelist. Author of, among others, Flaubert's Parrot (1984), England, England (1998) as well as Arthur & George (2005).

Julian Patrick Barnes ( born19 January 1946 in Leicester) is an English writer. 2011 he won the Man Booker Prize, for his book The Sense of an Ending, his three earlier books had been nominated for the Booker Prize: Flaubert's Parrot (1984), England, England (1998) and Arthur & George (2005). He also writes Crime Fiction under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh.

Personal Life

Julian Barnes was born in Leceister, England. HIs parents were both teachers of french. He has said that his support for Leicester City Football Club was, aged four or five, "a sentimental way of hanging on" to his home city. At the age of 10, Barnes was told by his mother that he had "too much imagination". He was educated at the city of London School from 1957 to 1964 and at Magdalen College, Oxford. He graduated in modern languages with honor in 1968, after that he worked as a lexicographer for the Oxford English Dictionary for three years. In 1977 Barnes began working as a reviewer and literary editor for the New Statesmen and the New Review. From 1979 to 1986 he worked as a television critic first for the New Statesmen and then for the Observer.

His wife, literary agent Pat Kavanagh, died of a brain tumor on 20 October 2008, he uses her surname as a synonym. Today He lives in London.

Carrer

Julian Barnes has written several novels and, short stories and essays.

His first novel Metroland (1980) has autobigraphical lines, its a story about Christopher a young man from London, who travels to Paris as a student and than returns to London. The novel is about idealism, sexual fidelity it has the three-part structure which is common theme for Barnes' novels.

In 1983 he published his second novel Before She Met Me, it is about a jealous man who becomes obsessed by his second wife's past.

His breakthrough novel Flaubert's Parrot broke with the linear sturcture of his previous novels, it featured a fragmentary biographical style story. The story is about an elderly doctor who is fixed obsessively on the life of Gustave Flaubert. The novel established Barnes as one of the best writers of his generation.

In 1986 the novel Starring at the Sun was published, it deals with a young woman growing up in post-war England and dealing with love, truth and mortality.

1989 Barnes published A HIstory of the World in 10½ Chapters, it is a non-linear novel. For this novel Barnes used a variety of wirting styles to perceive history and knowledge.

His next novel Talkin it Over was published in 1991, it is story about a love triangle, in which the three characters take turns to adressing the reader. Ten years later the novel Love etc. visits the three characters ten years later.

His book The Porcupine (1992) deals with a fictional Communist dictator.

His 1996 published book Cross Chanel deals with the relationship between England and France, he returns to the topic France in Something to Declare, a collection of essays on French subjects.

In 1998 he published the novel England, England, a satire on Britishness and the culture of tourism.

His tenth novel Arthur&George(2005) is about the life of Arthur Conan Doyle and his involvement in the Great Wyrley Orange.

His eleventh novel The Sense of an Ending(2011) was awarded with the Man Bookers Prize. The head judge Stella Remington, said "The Sense of an Ending was a "beautifully written book" and the panel thought it "spoke to humankind in the 21st Century."

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 Booker Prize The Sense of an Ending (2011) – winner of the Booker Prize

Collections and non-fiction

Letters from London (Picador, London, 1995) – journalism from The New Yorker, ISBN 0-330-34116-2 Cross Channel (1996) – stories Something to Declare (2002) – essays The Pedant in the Kitchen (2003) – journalism on cooking The Lemon Table (2004) – stories Nothing to Be Frightened Of (2008) – memoir Pulse (2011) – stories

Works as Dan Kavanagh

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

List of Literature

- Peter Childs, Julian Barnes, Manchester University Press (2011)

- Vanessa Guignery & Ryan Roberts, eds. Conversations with Julian Barnes, University Press of Mississippi (2009)

- Matthew Pateman, Julian Barnes: Writers and Their Work, Northcote House, (2002)

- Merritt Moseley, Understanding Julian Barnes, University of South Carolina Press (1997)