Conversation with Julian Barnes

Born in 1946 in Leicester, Julian Barnes is the author of eleven novels, short stories and collections of journalism. He has received many literary prizes. His novel, Flaubert’s Parrot won the Prix Médicis étranger in 1986, and Love, etc. was rewarded Prix Femina étranger four years later. The Sense of an Ending, a profound meditation on the passing of time, won the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. His latest novel, Levels of Life (2013), a mixture of essay, fiction and heartbreaking memoir, full of unparalleled insight and precision, is a powerful exploration of love and grief. Julian Barnes is also a master essayist. In Through the Window, he looks at British, French, and American writers who have meant most to him. In his essays on art, Keeping an Eye Open (2015), he shines new light on great painters.

Thomas Bodmer, editor and journalist