As Julian Barnes approaches his 80th birthday this Monday, Britain’s master of the modern novel is greeting the milestone with a rare sense of peace. According to npr.org, despite a six-year battle with blood cancer, the Booker Prize winner says he is “alive and enjoying himself,” even as he prepares to publish his final book.
Barnes has confirmed that his forthcoming book, “Departure(s),” will be his final work.
Despite a prognosis that requires lifelong chemotherapy, Barnes remains remarkably unsentimental about his condition.
“I can’t remember a period of months when there’s been so much going on,” Barnes said, reflecting on a whirlwind year that included his remarriage in August.
Rather than retreating from his diagnosis, Barnes has approached his treatment with what he describes as a “novelist’s interest.” He admits to finding the clinical world of needles and blood tests fascinating, though he concedes it becomes “a bit tedious on the 34th time.”
“Departure(s),” set for release the day after his birthday, is a “hybrid” work—a blend of fiction and memoir that serves as a companion to his 2013 masterpiece, Levels of Life. While the earlier book dealt with the devastating loss of his first wife, Pat Kavanagh, the new volume turns the lens on his own mortality.
Barnes, a long-time student of the French philosopher Montaigne, believes death should be “domesticated” through daily reflection. He credits his late wife with showing him how to face the end with grace.
“She had a catastrophic diagnosis and was dead in 37 days,” Barnes recalled. “She showed me how to die with grace and consideration for others. I don’t think I shall mourn my own departure in quite the same way.”
The author also used the occasion to advocate for assisted dying in the UK, arguing that individuals should have the “perfect human right” to end their lives if faced with extreme pain and no hope of a cure.
Known for his meticulous exploration of memory, Barnes now views the faculty as something that “deteriorates like everything else.” He notes that the stories we tell most often are likely our “least reliable,” as we subtly alter them over time.
As he prepares to step back from the literary stage, Barnes remains active and content. “I am alive and enjoying myself,” he insisted. For one of Britain’s most celebrated prose stylists, “Departure(s)’ marks a deliberate and characteristic closing of the ledger.
•Featured image: Julian Barnes/BBC/Adam Walker
