朱利安•巴恩斯（1946— ），英国当代著名作家。父母皆为法语教师，哥哥在牛津大学教授哲学，妻子帕特•凯伐纳是著名的文学经纪人。巴恩斯毕业于牛津大学，曾参与《牛津英语辞典》的编纂工作，做过多年的文学编辑和评论家。

“聪明”是巴恩斯作品的一贯标识。八十年代他以突破性之作《福楼拜的鹦鹉》入围布克奖决选，跻身英国文坛一流作家之列。此后，获各大文学奖项无数，三进布克奖决选，并于2011年凭借《终结的感觉》赢得大奖，同年获大卫•柯恩英国文学终身成就奖。

巴恩斯也深得法国读者的好感，他是唯一一位同时获得法国梅第奇奖和费米娜奖的作家，并先后荣获法国文化部颁发的文学艺术骑士、军官、司令勋章，堪称在法国最受欢迎的英国作家之一。

From a writer acclaimed by everyone from Graham Greene to John Fowles to John Irving, a new novel, short-listed for the Booker Prize, which The Sunday Times of London calls "both funny and serious, a double-act that English novels rarely manage . . . A commanding imaginative achievement."

Picture an England where all the pubs are quaint, the Royals behave themselves (more or less), and the cliffs of Dover actually are white. Now imagine that the principal national treasures--from Stonehenge to Buckingham Palace--are grouped together on the Isle of Wight.

This is precisely the vision that Sir Jack Pitman seeks to realize: a "destination" where tourists can find replicas of Big Ben, Wembley Stadium, the National Gallery, Princess Di's grave, and even Harrods (conveniently located inside the Tower of London), and visit them all in the course of a weekend. As this land of make-believe takes on its own comic and horrible reality, Barnes delights us with a novel that is at once a philosophical inquiry, a burst of mischief, a hilarious romp, and a moving elegy about authenticity and nationality.

Julian Barnes, according to The Sunday Times, "has written nothing more poignant and enticing."