Man Booker at Birkbeck 2017

Man Booker at Birkbeck 2017; A Conversation with Julian Barnes

Date: Monday 27 November 2017
Venue: Friends House (The Light)
Time: 6.00pm - 7.30pm
(The event will begin promptly at 6pm, doors open at 5.30pm for the audience to be seated)

Each year a Man Booker prize nominee comes to Birkbeck to deliver a talk and take part in a question and answer session. This year, Professor Russell Celyn Jones will join Julian Barnes in conversation about his novel, The Sense of an Ending (Winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize) and now a major film starring Academy Award nominees Jim Broadbent (Iris) and Charlotte Rampling (45 Years).

All students attending are invited to collect a free copy of the book, which will be available from the Birkbeck Library from early October to read in advance of the event.

Registration is free, but places are limited, so booking is essential

(NB This event is only open to Birkbeck students, staff and alumni)

Supported by Birkbeck, University of London and the Booker Prize Foundation

The Sense of an Ending is the story of a man coming to terms with the mutable past. Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they would navigate the girl-less sixth form together, trading in affectations, in-jokes, rumour and wit. Maybe Adrian was a little more serious than the others, certainly more intelligent, but they all swore to stay friends for life.

Now Tony is retired. He's had a career and a single marriage, a calm divorce. He's certainly never tried to hurt anybody. Memory, though, is imperfect. It can always throw up surprises, as a lawyer's letter is about to prove.

Julian Barnes

Barnes has received several awards and honours for his writing, including the 2011 Man Booker Prize for The Sense of an Ending. Three additional novels were shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize (Flaubert's Parrot 1984, England, England 1998, and Arthur & George 2005).

Barnes's other awards include the Somerset Maugham Award (Metroland 1981), Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize (FP 1985); Prix Médicis (FP 1986); E. M. Forster Award (American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, 1986); Gutenberg Prize (1987); Grinzane Cavour Prize (Italy, 1988); and the Prix Femina (Talking It Over 1992). Barnes was made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1988, Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1995 and Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2004. In 1993 he was awarded the Shakespeare Prize by the FVS Foundation and in 2004 won the Austrian State Prize for European Literature. In 2011 he was awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature. The prize, awarded biennially, honours a lifetime's achievement in literature for a writer in the English language who is a citizen of the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland. He received the Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence in 2013 and the 2015 Zinklar Award at the first annual Blixen Ceremony in Copenhagen. In 2016, the American Academy of Arts & Letters elected Barnes as an honorary foreign member. Also in 2016, Barnes was selected as the second recipient of the Siegfried Lenz Prize for his outstanding contributions as a European narrator and essayist. On 25 January 2017, the French President appointed Julian Barnes to the rank of Officier in the Ordre National de la Légion d'Honneur. The citation from the French Ambassador in London, Sylvie Bermann, reads: 'Through this award, France wants to recognize your immense talent and your contribution to raising the profile of French culture abroad, as well as your love of France.'

Julian Barnes has written numerous novels, short stories, and essays. He has also translated a book by French author Alphonse Daudet and a collection of German cartoons by Volker Kriegel. His writing has earned him considerable respect as an author who deals with the themes of history, reality, truth and love.