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Biography
Julian Barnes was born in Leicester,
England on
January 19, 1946. He was educated at the City of London School from 1957 to
1964 and at Magdalen
College, Oxford, from which he graduated in modern
languages (with honors) in 1968. After graduation, he worked as a
lexicographer for the Oxford English Dictionary supplement 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 (London).
Barnes has received several awards and honors for his writing including the
Somerset Maugham Award (Metroland 1981),
two Booker Prize nominations (Flaubert's Parrot 1984, England,
England 1998); Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize (FP 1985); Prix Médicis (FP 1986); E. M. Forster Award (American
Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, 1986); Gutenberg Prize (1987); Grinzane Cavour Prize (Italy, 1988); and the Prix Femina (Talking It Over 1992). Barnes was made a
Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1988, Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
in 1995 and Commandeur de l'Ordre
des Arts et des Lettres in 2004. In 1993 he was
awarded the Shakespeare Prize by the FVS Foundation and in 2004 won the
Austrian State Prize for European Literature.
Julian Barnes has
written eleven novels, two books of short stories, two collections of
essays, and a collection of writings about cookery. He has also translated
a book by French author Alphonse Daudet and a collection of German cartoons
by Volker Kriegel. His writing has earned him
considerable respect as an author who deals with the themes of history, reality,
truth and love.
His wife, literary agent Pat Kavanagh, died in October 2008.
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