Barnes wins Booker he once called ‘posh bingo’

LONDON: It was fourth time lucky for British writer Julian Barnes, who won literature'sBooker Prize on Tuesday after a contest that had as many insults, rivalries and bitter accusations as a paperback potboiler.
Barnes, a finalist on three previous occasions who once described the contest as " posh bingo", finally took the $82,000 prize with 'The Sense of an Ending' , a memory-haunted novel about a 60-something man forced to confront buried truths about his past after the unexpected arrival of a letter.
Former British spy chiefturned-thriller writer Stella Rimington, who chaired the judging panel, said the 150-page novel "spoke to humankind in the 21st century" . She said it was "almost an archetypal book of our time" that examined the unreliability of memory and how little we know ourselves. "It is exquisitely written, subtly plotted and reveals new depths with each reading."
Barnes, one of Britain's most critically acclaimed novelists, was previously nominated for 'Flaubert's Parrot' in 1984, 'England, England' in 1998 and 'Arthur and George' in 2005. The 65-year-old said that "in occasional moments of mild paranoia" he had wondered if forces were working against him ever winning.
"I'm as much relieved as I am delighted to receive the 2011 Booker Prize," he said, thanking his publishers "for their wisdom and the sponsors for their check" .