This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. My guest is the critically acclaimed best-selling author Julian Barnes.

He was diagnosed six years ago with a rare form of blood cancer, but it's not a death sentence. It's

treatable, which means he'll be on a chemo drug for the rest of his life. His 80th birthday is Monday.

Tuesday is the publication date of his new book, which he says

will be his last. It's called departures. It's part memoir, part fiction. The memoir sections are about

his diagnosis and his reflections on death, why he's agnostic, the power and unreliability of memory,

and how his memory has been diminishing with age. In a way, his new book is a companion to his book Levels of Life,

which was in part about grief and the death of his wife, Pat Kavanaugh, who was also his literary

agent. She died in 2008 just 37 days after being diagnosed with a rare, hyper-aggressive

brain tumor. They'd been married about 30 years. The New York Times Review described the book as

shattering. Barnes won Britain's highest literary award, the man Booker Prize in 2011, for his novel The Sense of an Ending.

His breakthrough novel, Flobert's Parrot, was shortlisted for the prize.

Before Barnes was known for his books, he was a lexicographer for the Oxford English Dictionary

supplement and a book and TV critic for British publications.

Julian Barnes, welcome back to Fresh Air.

I really like your new book a lot.

I found it very meaningful.

Good, good.

That's a good start.

It seems like a momentous couple of days next week, turning 80.

And having not only your new book, but the book you call your

final book public.

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