The novelist, essayist and critic Julian Barnes talks to John Wilson about his career and formative cultural influences. One of the most acclaimed and distinctive British writers of his generation, his early novels, including Metroland, A History Of The World In 10 and a Half Chapters, and Flaubert’s Parrot, established his reputation for blending fiction, factual biography and philosophical reflection. Julian Barnes won the Booker Prize in 2011 for The Sense Of An Ending, and the same year won the prestigious David Cohen Prize for Literature, awarded for a body of work. A famous Francophile, he was given the title of Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, one of France’s highest cultural honours in 2004. He has said that his latest book, Departure(s) will be his final novel.

Producer: Edwina Pitman