Brought to you by Penguin.

Hello and welcome to the Penguin podcast where we talk to writers about writing.

I'm Nihal Arthur Nica and today I'm speaking to one of the

UK's greatest living writers and I don't say that lightly. The author of 13 novels, he of course

won the Booker Prize in 2011 for a sense of an ending and his latest novel, Elizabeth Finch,

will be published later this month. but it's already a Sunday Times

bestseller. I'm delighted to have the opportunity to talk to him today. He is, of course,

Julian Barnes. Julian, welcome to the Penguin podcast. Thank you very much. Nice to be here.

Who came first, Elizabeth Finch or Neil? Oh, I think Elizabeth Finch came first,

but she came around about the same time as Julian the Apostate,

who is a real character who comes into a non-fiction part of the novel halfway through.

My books tend to begin quite a long way back,

and sometimes by the time I write them, I've forgotten where they come from.

But I can remember thinking of the sort of character I wanted to be the main character of this novel,

and to be observed by a student. She teaches in a sort of Birkbeck-type college at London University,

evening classes in culture and civilization.

And he, Neil, and the rest of the class have sort of come along

because they've reached their sort of 30s

and they're a bit beached.

They've slightly lost their way. They're looking for, as she puts it, a place of seriousness.

And she leads him and the rest of the class in a sort of alternative versions of history and civilization.

And at one point she talks to him about a figure called Julian

...