British Novelist Julian Barnes declared Winner of 2011 Man Booker Prize for The Sense of an Ending

British novelist Julian Barnes was on 18 October 2011 declared the unanimous winner of the 2011 £50,000 Man Booker prize for his novella, The Sense of an Ending. The novel is about a 60-something man forced to confront buried truths about his past after the unexpected arrival of a letter.

The book was hailed by critics as an exquisitemeditation on growing old, the nature of memory and relationships. At 150 pages, The Sense of an Ending is his shortest novel. The judges  mentioned that the book was exquisitely written, subtly plotted and reveals new depths with each reading.

Barnes, one of Britain's most critically acclaimed novelists, was previously nominated for Flaubert's Parrot in 1984, England, England in 1998 and Arthur and George in 2005.

The record for the shortest book ever to win a Booker remains Penelope Fitzgerald's Offshore which won in 1979.
The other contenders were : Carol Birch (Jamrach's Menagerie), Patrick deWitt (The Sisters Brothers), Esi Edugyan (Half Blood Blues), and debut authors Stephen Kelman (Pigeon English) and AD Miller (Snowdrops).

Julian Patrick Barnes born on 19 January 1946 in Leicester, England is a contemporary English writer. His first novel, Metroland (1980), is a short, semi-autobiographical story of Christopher, a young man from the London suburbs who travels to Paris as a student, finally returning to London.

Julian Barnes had earlier won the Austrial State prize for European literature in 2004 and the David Cohen prize for literature for his lifetime achievement in literature. In France he is the only writer to have won both the Prix Medicis (for Flaubert's Parrot) and the Prix Femina (for Talking It Over).

Former British spy chiefturned-thriller writer Stella Rimington chaired the judging panel.

Controversy

Inspite of being nominted thrice before for the prize, Julian Barnes never won it which had led him to famously describe the Booker Prize as posh bingo.