The versatile Julian Barnes (Leicester, 1946) will become, on 23 October 2026, the second Briton to receive the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature, following in the footsteps of Doris Lessing in 2001.
Published in Spain by the Anagrama publishing house, Barnes has worked as a lexicographer, columnist and literary and television critic before devoting himself entirely to literature. A Modern Languages graduate from the University of Oxford, he already holds France’s Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and the E.M. Forster Award of the American Academy.
