Born in Leicester, England, in 1946, Julian Barnes is the author of several books of stories, essays, a translation of Alphonse Daudet’s In the Land of Pain, and numerous novels. His recent publications include The Sense of an Ending, winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize, Through the Window: Seventeen Essays (and One Short Story), and Levels of Life.

In France, he is the only writer to have won both the Prix Médicis and the Prix Fémina, and in 2004 he became a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In England his honors include the Somerset Maugham Award and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. He has also received the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the San Clemente literary prize, and the Europese Literatuurprijs (2012). In 2011 he was awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature. Awarded biennially, the prize honours a lifetime’s achievement in literature for a writer in the English language who is a citizen of the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland. Also in 2011, Barnes won the Man Booker Prize for his novel The Sense of an Ending. He received the Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence in 2013. He lives in London.

The Sense of an Ending and Through the Window: Seventeen Essays (and One Short Story) are available in paperback from Vintage.

Levels of Life by Julian Barnes

Available April 2013. ‘You put together two things that have not been put together before. And the world is changed...’ Julian Barnes's new book is about ballooning, photography, love and grief; about putting two things, and two people, together, and about tearing them apart. One of the judges who awarded him the 2011 Man Booker Prize described him as ‘an unparalleled magus of the heart’. This book confirms that opinion. Order from Jonathan Cape (UK), Waterstones.co.uk, Amazon.co.uk, or a variety of Online and Independent Booksellers.

London Review Bookshop Limited Edition

Julian Barnes's new book Levels of Life will be issued in a limited edition by the London Review Bookshop. This is an exclusive limited first edition of Levels of Life, signed before publication by the author and published in association with Jonathan Cape. There are 50 copies only (plus 3 hors commerce), 35 of which have been quarter-bound in Harmatan Black fine leather and Duo Linde cloth sides with letterpress label and endpapers on green Bugra Bütten paper, and numbered 1 to 35. 15 copies have been fully bound in the same leather and numbered i to xv. All copies have green and white head and tail bands and are contained in suedel-lined slipcases. Edition of 35: £140 (£160 after 5 April) SOLD OUT Edition of 15: £260 (£275 after 5 April) SOLD OUT

Julian Barnes on BBC Radio

Julian Barnes discusses writing and sex on BBC Radio 3. Program information is below: The Essay: Explaining the Explicit (11 March 2013) Five different writers consider the reasons why and the challenges of writing about sex. In episode one, Julian Barnes asks 'Is writing about sex the same as writing about any other human activity - say, gardening or cricket?' and as a novelist 'what words do you use and what effect are you trying to have?' In little more than a few decades, perhaps a generation or two, western culture has arguably progressed from a largely repressed and circumspect attitude to portraying the sins and pleasures of the flesh to an altogether more casual and certainly visually more permissive approach. How have writers and readers, adjusted to these changes and what are authors trying to say when they write about sex ? Is the written word trailing in the wake of film, tv and video or have these media liberated authors from a more timid, and possibly less authentic way of writing ? These essays offer a chance to step back and reflect on some of the subtler arguments that can get lost amidst a sea of pneumatic imagery. Somewhere between the conventions of shock, titillation and comedy lie a whole range of other ideas that can be explored when writing about sex.

Through the Window by Julian Barnes

Available from Vintage in November 2012 In these seventeen essays (plus a short story) the 2011 Man Booker Prize winner examines British, French and American writers who have meant most to him, as well as the cross-currents and overlappings of their different cultures. From the deceptiveness of Penelope Fitzgerald to the directness of Hemingway, from Kipling's view of France to the French view of Kipling, from the many translations of Madame Bovary to the fabulations of Ford Madox Ford, from the National Treasure Status of George Orwell to the despair of Michel Houellebecq, Julian Barnes considers what fiction is, and what it can do. As he writes in his preface, 'Novels tell us the most truth about life: what it is, how we live it, what it might be for, how we enjoy and value it, and how we lose it.' Order from Vintage (UK), Waterstones.co.uk, Amazon.co.uk, or a variety of Independent Booksellers. Vintage is featuring Julian Barnes’s essay ‘Translating Madame Bovary’ on their International Fiction blog through the end of 2012. Read the complete essay on their website.