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My Writing Life: Julian Barnes

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, including the 2011 Man Booker Prize winning novel The Sense of an Ending and the stunning The Only Story. Other publications include Keeping an Eye Open: Essays on Art and The Man in the Red Coat.

Barnes has received numerous awards and honours for his writing, most recently the David Cohen Prize for Literature in 2011, the 2011 Man Booker Prize, the 2021 Jerusalem Prize, and the 2021 Yasnaya Polyana Literary Award. Also in 2021, he was awarded the Jean Bernard Prize, so named in memory of the great specialist in hematology who was a member of the French Academy and chaired the Academy of Medicine.

1. What book should every writer read?

No single book fits everyone. You should, theoretically, aim to read the major works in your own literature, plus those of other cultures. But don’t be embarrassed if you give up on some Famous Book (I’ve given up on many). Most writers, in any case, are much less well-read than, say, literary academics. And re-reading is often more valuable to a writer than keeping up with the latest book of the month.

2. What is the one thing you wish someone had told you before you started your writing career?

Perhaps that the average full-time writer’s income in the UK is currently £7,000 (when I was starting out it was £14,000). So if you earn enough to live on as a writer, count yourself very, very lucky.

3. Who has been an influential figure in your writing career?

On the one hand, many dead writers (it’s easier and better to be influenced by the dead than the living). Plus a few key encouragers when I was starting off as a literary journalist: editors such as Ian Hamilton, Karl Miller and Barbara Epstein (all dead now, of course).

4. What is the best advice you’ve ever received about your writing?

“You must write according to your feelings, be sure those feelings are true, and let everything else go hang,” Gustave Flaubert (many years ago).

5. What was the proudest moment of your writing career?

I suppose 2011, when I won both the David Cohen Prize and the Man Booker Prize.

6. What is your typical writing day like?

Get to my desk around 10, work until about 1, then return for a 5-7 p.m slot. Though with some books I have worked all through the day. It’s a question of finding out when your brain function and energy levels are at their maximum.

7. What are you reading right now?

I’m rereading Stendhal’s Le Rouge et le Noir.

8. Bookmarker or page-folder?

Definitely a book-marker. I have hundreds of them, all eager to be used.

This article originally appeared on our Substack channel.

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