Metroland is an English novel written by Julian Barnes and published in 1980. Philip Larkin wrote a letter to Barnes saying "that he had much enjoyed it, despite his prejudice against novels with people under the age of 21 in them. He added, gloomily, something like, 'but is that what life's like nowadays?'" Barnes described "this unexpected praise" as "the most gratifying moment of the strange passage of first publication."