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Departure(s)
  • Published: 20 January 2026
  • ISBN: 9781787335721
  • Imprint: Jonathan Cape
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 176
  • RRP: $34.99

Departure(s)

  • Julian Barnes
Formats & editions
Hardback
20 Jan 2026
EBook
22 Jan 2026
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The new book from the Booker Prize-winning Julian Barnes, about looking back, facing the future, and coming to the end of life

*The final book from the Booker Prize-winning, Sunday Times bestselling author*

Departure(s) is a work of fiction – but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.

'An elegant, thoughtful final book’ THE TIMES
‘His \"last book\" … proves one of his best’ DAILY TELEGRAPH
'Metafictional, moving, unmistakably Barnes' OBSERVER

Departure(s) is the story of a man called Stephen and a woman called Jean, who fall in love when they are young and again when they are old. It is the story of an elderly Jack Russell called Jimmy, enviably oblivious to his own mortality.

It is also the story of how the body fails us, whether through age, illness, accident or intent. And it is the story of how experiences fade into anecdotes, and then into memory. Does it matter if what we remember really happened? Or does it just matter that it mattered enough to be remembered?

It begins at the end of life – but it doesn’t end there. Ultimately, it’s about the only things that ever really mattered: how we find happiness in this life, and when it is time to say goodbye.

'One of our finest writers… Departure(s) can only polish his reputation’ DAILY EXPRESS

'He has given his career a triumphant ending’ FINANCIAL TIMES
  • Published: 20 January 2026
  • ISBN: 9781787335721
  • Imprint: Jonathan Cape
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 176
  • RRP: $34.99
Categories:

Praise for Departure(s)

A moving, engaging book… his [Barnes’s] humorous narrative explores the effect of time on love… a rather lovely swansong

Independent

[An] elegant, thoughtful final book, which considers old age, fate and happiness. It’s an arch blend of memoir and make-believe — and rather touching

The Times, *Books to Look Out For 2026*

His [Barnes’s] "last book"… proves one of his best

Daily Telegraph, *Books to Look Out For 2026*

Metafictional, moving, unmistakably Barnes

Observer, *Books to Look Out For 2026*

A richly layered autofiction… Artfully constructed to seem casually conversational, it braids erudite essayism and fiction, and every line is turned inside out with qualifications

Observer

At a little over 150 pages, Departure(s) is brief but it is not slight and, each time I read it, I thought about it for days afterwards… If this is his [Barnes’s] last book, he has given his career a triumphant ending

Financial Times

Disparate elements are bound together by the skilful management of theme and tone… [Departure(s)] is at once confidently authoritative and tentatively questioning. Barnes assumes a personal relation with his readers, built on the kind of intimacy that cancer’s company doesn’t provide

Times Literary Supplement

Booker Prize winner Julian Barnes approaches his 80th birthday this month secure in his position as one of our finest writers. And Departure(s) can only polish his reputation

Matt Nixson, Daily Express and Mirror

Departure(s), [is] a masterpiece of narrative trickery

Spectator

Barnes at his most irresistible… [Departure(s) is] a perfect send-off

The Times

A curious, engaging mix of fiction and non-fiction… Playful and self-aware, if this really is his last book…it’s a lovely way to sign off

UK Press Syndication

This is an author’s farewell to his readers, and an injunction to continue to observe the world: to notice, to wonder, as the best writers always encourage us to do

Daily Mail

Whether he’s writing fiction or nonfiction, Barnes is excellent… One of Barnes’s cleverest and most humane talents has been to allow us to feel things, ordinary things both trifling and important, about our own lives

Guardian, *Book of the Day*

Departure(s) departs beautifully, with Barnes imagining sitting at a pavement café with his faithful reader, enjoying a drink, watching the world go by

London Standard

The author’s masterful balance of confiding coolness and erudite intimacy will be missed even before the final page is turned

Mail on Sunday

Julian Barnes has achieved that rare thing: a departure on his terms, with a moving work that returns us to his oeuvre once again

New Statesman