Julian Barnes’ tenth novel Arthur & George was published to wide public and critical acclaim in 2005, culminating in the nomination for the 2005 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. With his previous publications, most notably Flaubert’s Parrot of 1983 and The History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters of 1989, Barnes had made a name for himself as a high post-modernist writer, experimental in particular in his approach to historical narrative. Geoffrey Braithwaite, the narrator of Flaubert’s Parrot famously asks “How do we seize the past?” (Barnes 1985: 90), a question that is symptomatic for Barnes” early fiction in general, as it is characterised by self-referential commentaries particularly about …
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Citation: Berberich, Christine. "Arthur and George". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 22 July 2011 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=22981, accessed 18 April 2024.]
