Julian Barnes and the Princess of Asturias Award
Or
Literature in the Service of the Empire
On the 10th of this month, the Princess of Asturias Foundation announced that its 2026 Literature Prize had been awarded to the British writer Julian Barnes.
As stated on its website, the “Princess of Asturias Foundation is a private, non-profit organization whose aims are to contribute to the appreciation and promotion of all scientific, cultural and humanistic values that constitute universal heritage, as well as to strengthen the existing ties between the Principality of Asturias and the title traditionally held by the heirs to the Spanish Crown.
His Majesty King Felipe VI has been Honorary President of the Foundation since its creation in 1980. Following his proclamation as King of Spain on 19 June 2014, Her Royal Highness Princess Leonor de Borbón y Ortiz, Princess of Asturias, has held the position of Honorary President of this institution, which annually awards the Princess of Asturias Awards.
Designed to recognize scientific, technical, cultural, social and humanitarian work carried out by individuals, institutions, groups of people or organizations at an international level, the prizes are awarded in eight categories: Arts, Literature, Social Sciences, Communication and Humanities, Scientific and Technical Research, International Cooperation, Concord and Sport.
The prizes are presented at an annual formal ceremony held in October at the Campoamor Theatre in Oviedo.
The awards ceremony is regarded as one of the most important cultural events on the international calendar. Throughout its history, these awards have received numerous accolades, such as the extraordinary declaration made by UNESCO in 2004 in recognition of their exceptional contribution to the cultural heritage of humanity.” (1)
On the same website, the Foundation also states that in selecting Julian Barnes, the jury
“highlighted his status as an extraordinary short-story writer and essayist, endowed with humor, irony and a ‘melancholic optimism and a cheerful pessimism’, in his own words. Barnes offers a lucid, warm and compassionate view of humankind, and uses memory as a shaper of identity without sacrificing imagination, with love as his essential principle.
His work reimagines, from a European perspective, the history of literature, art, music and even gastronomy, ultimately achieving a unique style that sets him apart within a generation of particularly brilliant British authors who have left their mark on contemporary literature.” (2)
Finally, the Foundation informs that Julian Barnes is “committed to human rights; he is involved with the organizations Freedom from Torture and Dignity in Dying. In addition to the awards already mentioned, in 2021 he received the Jerusalem Prize and, amongst others, the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1986), the Prix Femina étranger for Talking it Over (France, 1992), the Austrian State Prize for European Literature (2004) and the David Cohen Prize for Literature (United Kingdom, 2011). He is a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in France (2004).” (3)
Julian Barnes is indeed a fine writer who gained international recognition with the publication in 1984 of his third novel, Flaubert’s Parrot, in which he blends various genres, from biography to the essay.
The 2026 Princess of Asturias Award for Literature received 37 nominations from 24 different nationalities, and amongst these there may well be other writers, both men and women, who are just as deserving of the prize as Julian Barnes. The foundation does not disclose the names of the other nominees for its Literature Prize, and so we have no way of judging whether the choice was the right one. The fact is that the jury decided to honor a fine writer who, sadly, has also chosen to turn a blind eye to the crimes of the Empire.
The Noise of Time
In 2016, Julian Barnes published his novel The Noise of Time. In 2012, Julian Assange, a journalist and founder of the WikiLeaks website, who was being persecuted for his revelations about the crimes of the Empire, sought protection and asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Julian Barnes is a British citizen who lives in London; whilst he was writing The Noise of Time, the other Julian – Assange – was already literally trapped within the Ecuadorian Embassy, from where he could not leave for fear of being arrested and extradited to the US, where his life would be at risk and he would face a long prison sentence.
The Noise of Time is a fictionalized biography of the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, focusing primarily on the period he lived in the USSR under Stalin. The book is full of factual details about the life of Shostakovich, who suffered under Stalin’s authoritarian schizophrenia: at times he was honored as the USSR’s greatest composer, whilst at others he was persecuted and prevented from performing his music – as was particularly the case with his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, the work that triggered the Stalinist regime’s suspicions about Shostakovich’s ‘loyalty’.
Upon its publication, The Noise of Time was widely praised by critics in the United Kingdom.
In the book, Julian Barnes says the following about Shostakovich:
“He (Shostakovich) admired those who stood up and spoke truth to Power. He admired their bravery and their moral integrity.”
That being the case, Shostakovich would have been an admirer of Julian Assange. Barnes, on the other hand, has never spoken out in defense of Assange or supported his cause.
Yet another example of schizophrenia: an English writer writes about the suffering of a Russian composer under Stalinism in Russia, whilst remaining silent about the suffering and persecution of a contemporary journalist in his own city and right before his very eyes! Worse still, the press, which so warmly hails the publication of the book and its exposé, also remains silent on the far more serious case of Julian Assange! And apparently no one even notices the contradiction!
It seems that Assange, not being an artist like Shostakovich, does not deserve the same attention. Yet Assange’s case is far more serious than Shostakovich’s, as it involves the revelation of FACTS about Power – with a capital P, as Barnes writes in his book – rather than subjective judgements as to whether or not a piece of music is ‘counter-revolutionary’.
In The Noise of Time Julian Barnes expresses his solidarity with Shostakovich and voices his outrage at the persecution he suffered – solidarity and outrage that Assange did not receive from Barnes.
In his book, Barnes wrote, denouncing Stalinism:
“Fear: what did those who inflicted it know? They knew that it worked, even how it worked, but not what it felt like.”
Assange was probably much more afraid, and for much longer, than Shostakovich, as the persecution he endured was far greater. Assange remained confined to the Ecuadorian Embassy from August 2012 until April 2019, when the London police, with the permission of the Ecuadorian government, entered the Embassy and arrested him. Shostakovich was never arrested and, despite all the humiliations he endured, was able to continue composing. Whilst Shostakovich’s struggle was for freedom of expression, Assange’s was for the no less important and fundamental freedom of information.
And just as Stalinism understood and knew how to utilize the mechanism of fear, so too does the Empire. The relentless persecution of Assange has always been intended to instill fear in all those who might consider following the same path: the consequences would be devastating.
Julian Barnes wrote in his book:
“And yes, music might be immortal, but composers alas are not. They are easily silenced and even more easily killed.”
Journalists, too, are easily silenced and even more easily killed – an obvious truth that seems to have escaped the writer Julian Barnes.
This other passage in The Noise of Time is very revealing:
“But he was more revolted by the famous Western humanitarians who came to Russia and told its inhabitants they were living in paradise. Malraux, who praised the White Sea Canal without ever mentioning that its constructors were worked to death. Feuchtwanger, who fawned over Stalin and ‘understood’ how the slow trials were a necessary part in the development of democracy. The singer Robeson, loud in his applause for political killing. Romain Rolland and Bernard Shaw, who disgusted him the more because they had the temerity to admire his music while ignoring how Power treated him and all other artists.”
In the passage above, Barnes did not feel the need to point out that Malraux, Feuchtwanger, Romain Rolland and Bernard Shaw were all writers, assuming that his readers would know this. However, Barnes felt it necessary to point out that Robeson was a singer, as, unlike the others, his readers might not know who Robeson was.
Nevertheless, Paul Robeson was one of the most extraordinary figures of the 20th century. From the 1930s through to the 1960s, the African-American singer, actor and activist Paul Robeson was known practically all over the world. His ‘oblivion’ is further proof of the Empire’s power to make all those who challenge it ‘disappear’ from the collective memory.
Paul Robeson first came to prominence as an actor, performing in plays by Eugene O’Neill in the late 1910s. It was chiefly in London, in the late 1920s, that Robeson became famous for his performances in the musical Show Boat and in Shakespeare’s Othello. Robeson lived in London for several years, where he began his political activism alongside unemployed workers and the anti-imperialist movement. He supported the Republican cause during the Spanish Civil War and, at the invitation of the British scientist J.B.S. Haldane, visited Spain in 1938, where he sang for wounded soldiers at the hospital in Benicassim. Robeson was also involved in the struggle for the independence of the African colonies. He lived in London until the outbreak of the Second World War, and his name appeared on the famous Sonderfahndungsliste G.B. – the Special Search List for Great Britain – which contained the names of people to be arrested immediately should the Nazis invade England. In 1934, at the invitation of Sergei Eisenstein, Robeson visited the USSR for the first time and, on arriving in Moscow, declared:
“In Russia I felt for the first time like a full human being. No color prejudice like in Mississippi, no color prejudice like in Washington. It was the first time I felt like a human being.”
In The Noise of Time Barnes presents an entirely negative view of the USSR. But for African Americans such as Paul Robeson, Sidney Bechet and many others who had also been there, the USSR was an oasis of peace, a place where they could walk the streets in the company of white women without running the risk of being murdered by lynching. In 1936, Robeson sent his son to study in the USSR to protect him from racism. Robeson was friends with Albert Einstein for almost 20 years, from 1935, when Einstein came to greet him in his dressing room after a concert and the two discovered a common ground that would unite them: their hatred of fascism.
n 1946, during a meeting with US President Harry Truman, Robeson said that if the government did not pass legislation to end lynchings, “Black people will defend themselves”. Robeson founded the American Anti-Lynching Association. Malcolm X and the Black Panther Party were heirs to Paul Robeson’s legacy.
In the 1950s, Robeson was one of the victims of McCarthyism. His passport was confiscated, he was banned from travelling, he was almost completely prevented from working, and his income fell to rock bottom. His passport was only returned in 1958, when he was able to return to Europe.
Paul Robeson would deserve a novel like the one Julian Barnes dedicated to Shostakovich. But it seems there is far more sympathy for the victims of Stalinist persecution than for the victims of imperial persecution.
Julian Barnes implies that the persecution of artists took place only in the USSR. What about the artists in the US – directors, screenwriters, actors, actresses, writers, musicians – persecuted by McCarthyism, prevented from working, many reduced to poverty? Not even Charles Chaplin escaped this persecution; he had to flee the US and settle in Switzerland.
In his book, Barnes recounts the episode of Shostakovich’s visit to the United States, organized by the USSR. On that occasion, Shostakovich was forced to read a speech in which, amongst other things, he denounced the music of the anti-communist Igor Stravinsky. Shostakovich was ashamed of this act for the rest of his life, as Barnes recounts. During the McCarthy era, many artists were forced not only to publicly denounce the work of their colleagues, but also to inform on them so that they too would be drawn into the machine that ground down lives and reputations: McCarthyism.
And what of the persecution, the fury of the Empire that today mercilessly attacks all who challenge it? In London, those who dare to speak out in defense of the terrorized Palestinian people are accused of terrorism! It is no coincidence that Orwell was English…
This selective outrage is intrinsic to imperial servitude: one can—indeed, one must—be outraged by the plight of children in Ukraine, yet the suffering of Palestinian children is ignored.
When they occur within the Empire, political persecution and violence against dissenting voices are always treated as ‘exceptions’, ‘mistakes’ that are usually temporary in an essentially just system. The same persecution and the same violence in places considered hostile by the Empire are proof of a totalitarian and fundamentally oppressive regime, an enemy of humanity itself.
In The Noise of Time, Julian Barnes introduces us to one of Shostakovich’s persecutors, Tikhon Khrennikov, First Secretary of the Union of Composers of the USSR during Stalin’s time:
“Tikhon Khrennikov would like for ever, a permanent and necessary symbol of the man who loved Power and knew how to make it love him back.”
Khrennikov is someone who is prepared to do anything to please those in power and thus retain his position; he is both a servant and a pillar of that power, for it needs people like Khrennikov.
At the end of the book, in the Author’s Notes, Julian Barnes lists his biographical sources and comments:
“Khrennikov never disappeared from view, nor lost his love of Power: in 2003, he was decorated by Vladimir Putin.”
The implication is clear: by awarding Khrennikov a medal, Vladimir Putin represents the continuity of the Stalinist system, and Putin’s Russia is the continuation of the evil USSR….
Thus, selective outrage is not even genuine outrage, but merely a means of currying favor with those in power by helping to legitimize their narratives. With The Noise of Time Julian Barnes has repeated and legitimized the imperial narrative about Russia and fueled the Russophobia that is so vital to the European ruling class in order to continue its austerity policies and remain in power. At the same time, he has turned a blind eye to the abuses, violence and persecution perpetrated by the Empire. Is this not, precisely, the behavior of a Khrennikov?
He was awarded the Princess of Asturias Prize. Power loves him in return.
Franklin Frederick
(1) https://www.fpa.es/es/la-fundacion/fundacion-princesa-de-asturias/
(2) https://www.fpa.es/es/premios-princesa-de-asturias/premiados/2026-julian-barnes/?texto=acta
(3) https://www.fpa.es/es/premios-princesa-de-asturias/premiados/2026-julian-barnes/?texto=trayectoria