Julian Barnes

Merritt Moseley (University of North Carolina, Asheville)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of York), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

Born 19 Jan 1946
Activity 1984-ongoing

Places

Born in England
Active in England

Activities

Primary

Essayist
Novelist
Story-writer

Resources

Barnes' Works

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Since 1980, Julian Barnes has made a name for himself as one of the best British novelists of his generation, a group that also includes Martin Amis and Ian McEwan. His work is distinguished by its intelligence and wit; its ready willingness to deal with important themes; and its versatility. Even aside from his detective novels, Barnes’s works demonstrate a continual freshness. In scope, they range from a professed history of the world to the story of a man seeking the original parrot owned by Flaubert while he wrote one of his stories (these two books,

Flaubert’s Parrot

and

A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters

, are probably his best known), though since he investigates the vagaries of the human heart in most of his novels, there is nothing miniaturist about any of them, even…

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4209 words

Citation: Moseley, Merritt. "Julian Barnes". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 May 2001; last revised 29 October 2018. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=267, accessed 22 November 2024.]

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