Julian Barnes 2026 Princess of Asturias Award for Literature

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”.