There existed a loose sense of connection to previous Bohemias, to Fitzrovia and Bloomsbury, back to the original Grub Street, whose inhabitants Johnson defined as 'writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems'.....
And Barnes recalls a famous editor (of The New Review) Ian Hamilton:
One Famous Writer brought him a piece and wisely absented himself to the Pillars while Hamilton read it. On his return, Old Stoneface told him that if torn into small pieces it might serve adequately as cat litter. 'Fine, fine,' replied the FW, 'May I borrow your phone?' Whereupon he rang his office and began chewing out his secretary. It made perfect psychological sense.
Julian Barnes called the Man Booker prize, "posh bingo." And yet he won it for his book The Sense of an Ending (2011).
His less recent publications include:
Metroland, 1980 (Somerset Maugham Award, 1981);
Before She Met Me, 1982;
Flaubert’s Parrot, 1984 (Geoffrey Faber Meml Prize, 1985; Prix Médicis, 1986; Grinzane Cavour Prize (Italy), 1988);
Staring at the Sun, 1986;
A History of the World in 10½ Chapters, 1989;
Talking it Over, 1991 (Prix Femina, 1992);
The Porcupine, 1992;
Cross Channel (short stories), 1996;
England, England, 1998;
Love, etc, 2000;
Something to Declare (essays), 2002;
trans. Daudet, In the Land of Pain, 2002;
The Pedant in the Kitchen, 2003;
And this crime fiction under the name of Dan Kavanagh:
Duffy, 1980;
Fiddle City, 1981;
Putting the Boot In, 1985;
Going to the Dogs, 1987.
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