Julian Barnes

In May 1937 a man in his early thirties waits by the lift of a Leningrad apartment block. He waits all through the night, expecting to be taken away to the Big House. Any celebrity he has known in the previous decade is no use to him now. And few who are taken to the Big House ever return. So begins Julian Barnes's first novel since his Booker-winning 'The Sense of an Ending'. A story about the collision of art and power, about human compromise, human...

Would you rather love the more, and suffer the more; or love the less, and suffer the less? That is, I think, finally, the only real question. First love has lifelong consequences, but Paul doesn't know anything about that at 19. At 19, he's proud of the fact his relationship flies in the face of social convention. As he grows older, the demands placed on Paul by love become far greater than he could possibly have foreseen.

Julian Barnes examines British, French and American writers who have meant the most to him, as well as the cross-currents and overlappings of their different cultures. From the deceptiveness of Penelope Fitzgerald to the directness of Hemingway, from Kipling's view of France to the French view of Kipling, Julian Barnes considers what fiction is, and what it can do.

Julian Barnes new book is, among many things, a family memoir, an exchange with his brother (a philosopher), a meditation on mortality and the fear of death, a celebration of art, an argument with and about God, and a homage to the French writer Jules Renard.

Ritesh Batra directs this British drama adapted from the novel by Julian Barnes. The film follows the retired Tony Webster (Jim Broadbent) as he looks back over his failed relationship with Veronica Ford (Charlotte Rampling), his girlfriend while at university. After receiving news that Veronica's mother has left him a diary belonging to a friend who dated Veronica after his relationship with her ended acrimoniously, Tom sets out to retrieve the document....