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Ian’s guest this week is the author Julian Barnes. In an extended interview Ian takes Julian through his writing career, which began in 1980 with the publication of his first novel ‘Metroland’, right up to his most recent book ‘The Noise of Time’, published earlier this year.ÌýHis varied career spanning over 25Ìýyears has seen himÌýmixing genres, such as in the cult classic ‘Flaubert’s Parrot’; examining cowardice and failure, as in ‘Talking It Over’ and its sequel ‘Love, Etc’; and winning the Booker Prize in 2011 for ‘The Sense of an Ending’. The interview considers some of the most important themes in Julian’s work, such as Time, and why older writers are better at portraying its passage, Love, and how to convey its fragility, and Truth, a subject Julian is drawn to when it’s at its most slippery. We also hear from Barnes the reader, as he celebrates the authors he admires the most, from Gustave Flaubert, who is never far from his thoughts, to more recent writers such as John Updike and Alice Munro. Barnes ultimately celebrates the power of the novel to talk to you ‘in the silence of your own mind’.

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Julian Barnes' books are published by

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