Julian Barnes

Julian Barnes was born on 19 January 1946 in Leicester, England. His family moved to London shortly after his birth, and he was educated at the City of London School and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied modern languages. After graduating, he worked as a lexicographer for the Oxford English Dictionary supplement and then as a reviewer and literary editor. He began his literary career with the novel Metroland (1980), followed by his breakthrough Flaubert's Parrot (1984), shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Barnes's acclaimed novels include A History of the World in 10½ Chapters (1989), England, England (1998), Arthur & George (2005), and The Sense of an Ending (2011), which won the Man Booker Prize. He has published essay collections, memoirs including Levels of Life (2013) addressing his grief over his first wife's death, and non-fiction such as The Man in the Red Coat (2019). He has also written four crime novels under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh. He was awarded the Jerusalem Prize in 2021.