LONDON, January 15, 2026 — Booker Prize winner Julian Barnes has announced that his upcoming novel, Departures(s), will be his last, stating he feels “that I’ve played all my tunes.” The celebrated author, who turns 80 on Monday, is concluding a prolific 45-year career encompassing 15 novels and 10 works of nonfiction.
A Final Chapter, But Not a Final Word
Barnes plans to continue writing journalism and reviews, but feels he’s reached a natural endpoint with long-form fiction.
- Barnes’s final novel, Departures(s), explores themes of memory, love, and aging.
- The author is currently managing a rare form of blood cancer with daily chemotherapy.
- Barnes secretly remarried last August to Rachel Cugnoni, his partner of eight years.
“One way of thinking about how long you go on is, ‘As long as they’ll still publish you,’” Barnes told the Telegraph. “But that can be misleading. I shouldn’t write a book just because it would be published. You ought to go on until you’ve said everything you’ve got to say, and I’ve reached that point.”
Departures(s) is described as a hybrid of memoir, essay, and fiction, centering on Barnes’s role as a confidant between two friends whose romantic relationship dissolved. The novel promises to weave together recurring themes from his body of work, including the complexities of memory, enduring love, the bonds of friendship, the challenges of aging, and the inevitability of death.
Barnes, diagnosed six years ago with a rare blood cancer treated with daily chemotherapy pills, offered a pragmatic assessment of his health: “Right now, it’s a score draw.” He added, “But as long as it continues to be stable, it just contributes to a weakening of the organism. And I’m just used to it.”
The author found renewed personal happiness after a period of grief. Widowed in 2008 when his wife, literary agent Pat Kavanagh, succumbed to a brain tumor, Barnes revealed he secretly married Rachel Cugnoni, a publisher he’s known for nearly three decades and been with for the past eight years, last August.
A Career Defined by Nuance and Recognition
Barnes’s literary journey began with the publication of Metroland in 1980. However, his breakthrough arrived in 1984 with Flaubert’s Parrot, which earned a Booker Prize nomination. He would be shortlisted twice more for England, England and Arthur & George before finally winning the prestigious award in 2011 for The Sense of an Ending. He also writes crime fiction under the pen name Dan Kavanagh.
Reflecting on his success, Barnes told the Telegraph, “I’ve led a lucky life. If you’d told me when I was 30 I’d write lots of books which a lot of people like to read, I’d have been staggered. So I’m very pleased about that.”
Despite facing mortality, Barnes maintains a philosophical outlook. The avowed atheist, when asked about his fear of death, responded, “I used to be terrified of death, but after spending about 10 years with a body falling apart or not behaving well, I don’t feel resigned to it. But it’s obviously different when you die in your 80s from dying in your 40s or 50s. But losing your life when you’re just holding on … who can tell?”
