Should there be a retirement age for writers?

Earlier this month two of Britain’s most celebrated writers announced their “retirement” from novel writing. Julian Barnes made his decision public as his latest novel Departure(s) hit the bookstores. “I will miss it,” said the 80-year-old to the BBC, “but at the same time it would be foolish to do it if I didn’t do it with full conviction.” His compatriot Jeffrey Archer, whose career has been marked by as many best-sellers as controversies, cited his advanced years and his ambitious final novel, Adam and Eve, which is forthcoming in October, as the driving factors behind his decision. “At the age of 85 I could never hope to equal it again,” he said. Archer promised to continue writing short stories, while Barnes will keep up with journalism.

The news of retirement makes the biggest splash in the world of sports, where such decisions are usually dictated by the frailties of age. While writing can be physically exacting, it can also remain a lifelong pursuit, as long as the intellectual faculties continue to function. John Milton didn’t give up even after turning blind, using his daughters as amanuensis. Nirad C. Chaudhuri continued to publish into his 90s, his last full-length book appearing when he was 99.

A writer’s retirement, therefore, tends to be more elusive. It often involves a shift from obligatory publishing to writing as whimsy, for the writer’s sake. J.D. Salinger became a recluse after his early success, though he didn’t stop writing. In contrast, Philip Roth bowed out in 2012 after a long career because he refused to add “mediocre books” to “the world’s library”. Gabriel Garcia Marquez continued writing into his last years, even after he was afflicted by dementia. His last novel, Until August, was published posthumously in 2024.

It is rare for writers, especially those who are widely successful, to demonstrate the critical self-awareness of Barnes, Roth and Archer. When she was 71, Anne Tyler had expressed a desire to write only one novel till the end of her life. But listening to her better judgement, the 84-year-old has come up with several fine books since then. Then there were others, like Charles Bukowski, who had a fallow decade when he published nothing, before making a comeback. But not everyone is as fortunate.

The ethos of modern publishing, driven by sales figures and the personal brand of writers, is much less forgiving. Operating within the framework of a culture of visibility and numbers, the idea that writers must publish or perish leads to the inevitable dilution of a body of work. More so, authors who prove to be a “golden goose” for their publishers end up paying a steep price, churning out less than palatable books with self-same themes and tropes, their earlier works anthologised repeatedly until they have lost all appeal. Children’s publishing in India is notorious for its over-dependence on at least two such writers, who have continued publishing well past their prime. Honestly, for most writers, retirement, publicly announced or quietly implied, isn’t such a bad thing.

The best in the business of writing don’t need to capitalise on their retirement as a proxy for self-promotion. For them, it is an act of leave-taking from being a public figure, renouncing the need to perform and entertain. In the case of Barnes, who is suffering from blood cancer, his retirement perhaps also signals a closure in another sense, his need to acknowledge “the sense of an ending”, to borrow from the title of one of his most beloved books.