Julian Barnes, Princess of Asturias Award for Literature 2026

British writer Julian Barnes has been granted the 2026 Princess of Asturias Award for Literature, as made public today by the Jury responsible for conferring said Award.

Convened by the Princess of Asturias Foundation, the Jury for this Award was chaired by Santiago Muñoz Machado and composed of María Sheila Cremaschi, María Dueñas Vinuesa, Marcos Giralt Torrente, Raquel Lanseros Sánchez, Lola Larumbe Doral, Antonio Lucas Herrero, Inés Martín Rodrigo, Sergio del Molino Molina, Berta Piñán Suárez, Marisol Schulz Manaut, Sergio Vila-Sanjuán Robert, Jorge Volpi Escalante and Fernando Rodríguez Lafuente (as acting secretary).

This candidature was put forward by Socorro Suárez Lafuente, Professor Emeritus at the University of Oviedo.

Julian Patrick Barnes (Leicester, United Kingdom, 19th January 1946) studied Modern Languages at Magdalen College, Oxford. He subsequently worked for three years as a lexicographer for the Oxford English Dictionary and as a literary and television critic and editor for the New Statesman and the Sunday Times. He has been a columnist for The Observer and The New Yorker. Described as postmodernist for his novels and short stories and considered one of the greatest revelations of English fiction in recent decades, Julian Barnes published his first book, Metroland (1980), which won the 1981 Somerset Maugham Award, followed two years later by Before She Met Me (1982). In 1984, he was a Booker Prize finalist with his third novel, Flaubert’s Parrot, which won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and the Prix Médicis. He was a finalist again in 1998 with England, England and in 2005 with Arthur & George. He subsequently published Staring at the Sun (1986), A History of the World in 10½ Chapters (1989), Talking It Over (1991) –and its sequel, Love, etc (2000)–, and The Porcupine (1992). In 2011, he finally won the Booker Prize for The Sense of an Ending (2011). The Noise of Time (2016), The Only Story (2018) and Elizabeth Finch (2022) are three of his most recent published works. 

Under the pen name Dan Kavanagh, Barnes has also written crime novels: Duffy (1980), Fiddle City (1981), Putting the Boot In (1985), and Going to the Dogs (1987). He has also published books of short stories: Cross Channel (1996), The Lemon Table (2004), and Pulse (2011). Other works of his include Letters from London (1995) and the books of essays Something to Declare (2002), Through the Window (2012) and Keeping an Eye Open: Essays on Art (2015), The Pedant in the Kitchen (2003) and Changing My Mind (2025), as well as the memoirs Nothing to be Frightened Of (2008), Levels of Life (2013) and Departure(s) (2026), with which he has announced his retirement from literature. He is also the author of the biography of Samuel Jean de Pozzi, The Man in the Red Coat (2019). 

Committed to human rights, he participates in the organizations Freedom from Torture and Dignity in Dying. In addition to the aforementioned awards, he was granted the Jerusalem Prize in 2021 and has received, among others, the E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1986), the Prix Femina étranger for Love, etc (France, 1992), the Austrian State Prize for European Literature (2004), and the David Cohen Prize for Literature (United Kingdom, 2011). He is a Chevalier of France’s Order of Arts and Letters (2004). 

As stated in the Statutes of the Foundation, the Princess of Asturias Awards are aimed at rewarding “the scientific, technical, cultural, social and humanitarian work carried out at an international level by individuals, institutions or groups of individuals or institutions”. In keeping with these principles, the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature is conferred in recognition of “the work of fostering and advancing literary creation in all its genres”.

This year, a total of 37 candidatures comprising 24 different nationalities were put forward for the Award for Literature.
This is the seventh of the eight Princess of Asturias Awards to be bestowed in what is now their forty-sixth year. Previously, the Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts was granted to American singer and writer Patti Smith; the Award for Communication and Humanities went to the Japanese animation studio Studio Ghibli; the Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research was conferred on British chemists David Klenerman and Shankar Balasubramanian and French biophysicist Pascal Mayer; the Princess of Asturias for International Cooperation went to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Norway); the Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences was bestowed on British historian, journalist and essayist Timothy Garton Ash; and the Princess of Asturias Award for Sports went to Argentinian footballer Leo Messi. The Princess of Asturias Award for Concord will be conferred next week.

As is customary, the presentation of the Princess of Asturias Awards will take place in October in a solemn ceremony presided over by Their Majesties The King and Queen, accompanied by Their Royal Highnesses The Princess of Asturias and Infanta Sofía.

Each Princess of Asturias Award comprises a Joan Miró sculpture symbolizing the Award, a diploma, an insignia and a cash prize of fifty thousand euros.