In Before She Met Me Julian Barnes unfolds the history of a strange sexual obsession: that of a man for his wife's past. Graham was an historian: he was meant to be an expert on the past. But there were aspects of it, he discovered, that couldn't be subdued, that simply carried on, lively and painful, as if they were the present. He began to mind. He minded very much indeed. While those around him look on - with concern, with contempt, with amusement - Graham's meticulous passion gradually begins to run out of control. Julian Barnes presents an unnerving version of sexual jealousy and shows it to be not just living, but reasonable, ordinary, funny, dangerous and consuming.

Author Biography

Julian Barnes has published nine novels, Metroland, Before She Met Me, Flaubert's Parrot, Staring at the Sun, A History of the World in 10 and Half Chapters, Talking It Over, The Porcupine, England, England and Love, etc; two books of short stories, Cross Channel and The Lemon Table; and also two collections of essays, Letters from London and Something to Declare. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages. In France he is the only writer to have won both the Prix Midicis (for Flaubert's Parrot ) and the Prix Fimina (for Talking It Over). In 1993 he was awarded the Shakespeare Prize by the FVS Foundation of Hamburg. He lives in London.