Notes on this item: Postcard titled, “LES GRANDS ECRIVAINS PUBLICS DE L’EUROPE | no. 4: Julien Barnes.” Published by Editions Lagrange, Montpellier.
Pictures Julian Barnes standing by a motorbike in front of a “Public Writer” sign in Morocco. The photo was taken by Pat Kavanagh, and Barnes made it into a French postcard as a joke. Note that he spells his name as “Julien”, which is the French spelling and that the publisher is “Lagrange” [la grange = barn], a name he later used in his Man Booker Prize winning novel The Sense of an Ending [Patrick Lagrange].
Barnes sent the postcard to Gil Moody, owner of Moody Books in Tennessee. To the back, Barnes has written:
21 June 99
Dear Gil Moody:
This is the best
I can do for you, I’m
afraid. Signed photos
are for film stars in my
view. And I can’t sign
any more books – I did
400 copies of England, England
when I was last at Knopf
HQ – perhaps they (Jonas
Karp) can let you have
some… Good luck with
the bookstore.
Yours,
Julian Barnes