Ian McEwan

British novelist and screenwriter (born 1948)

Ian McEwan

CH CBE FRSA FRSL

McEwan in 2011

Born| Ian Russell McEwan
(1948-06-21) 21 June 1948 (age 77)
Aldershot, Hampshire, England
Occupation| Novelist, screenwriter
Alma mater| University of Sussex
University of East Anglia
Period| 1975–present
Spouse|

Penny Allen

(m. 1982; div. 1995)​

Annalena McAfee

(m. 1997)​

Children| 2
Website
ianmcewan.com

Ian Russell McEwan CH CBE FRSA FRSL (born 21 June 1948) is a British novelist and screenwriter. In 2008, The Times featured him on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945" and The Daily Telegraph ranked him number 19 in its list of the "100 most powerful people in British culture".[1]

McEwan began his career writing sparse, Gothic short stories. His first two novels, The Cement Garden (1978) and The Comfort of Strangers (1981), earned him the nickname "Ian Macabre". These were followed by three novels of some success in the 1980s and early 1990s. His novel Enduring Love was adapted into a film of the same name. He won the Booker Prize with Amsterdam (1998). His next novel, Atonement, garnered acclaim and was adapted into an Oscar-winning film featuring Keira Knightley and James McAvoy. His later novels have included The Children Act, Nutshell, and Machines Like Me. He was awarded the 1999 Shakespeare Prize, and the 2011 Jerusalem Prize.

## Early life and education

[edit]

McEwan was born in Aldershot, Hampshire, on 21 June 1948, the son of David McEwan and Rose Lilian Violet (née Moore).[2] His father was a working-class Scotsman who had worked his way up through the army to the rank of major.[3]

McEwan spent much of his childhood in East Asia (including Singapore), Germany, and North Africa (including Libya), where his father was posted. His family returned to England when he was 12 years old. He was educated at Woolverstone Hall School in Suffolk; the University of Sussex, where he received a degree in English literature in 1970; and the University of East Anglia, where he undertook a master's degree in literature (with the option to submit creative writing instead of a critical dissertation).[4]

## Career

[edit]

### 1975–1987: Short stories and "Ian Macabre" phase

[edit]

McEwan's first published work was a collection of short stories, First Love, Last Rites (1975), which won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1976. He achieved notoriety in 1979 when the BBC suspended production of his play Solid Geometry because of its supposed obscenity.[5] His second collection of short stories, In Between the Sheets, was published in 1978. The Cement Garden (1978) and The Comfort of Strangers (1981), his two earliest novels, were both adapted into films. The nature of these works caused him to be nicknamed "Ian Macabre".[6] These were followed by his first book for children, Rose Blanche (1985), and a return to literary fiction with The Child in Time (1987), winner of the 1987 Whitbread Novel Award.

### 1988–2007: Mainstream success and Booker Prize win

[edit]

After The Child in Time, McEwan began to move away from the darker, more unsettling material of his earlier career and towards the style that would see him reach a wider readership and gain significant critical acclaim. This new phase began with the publication of the mid-Cold War espionage drama The Innocent (1990), and Black Dogs (1992), a quasi companion-piece reflecting on the aftermath of the Nazi era in Europe and the end of the Cold War. McEwan followed these works with his second book for children, The Daydreamer (1994).

His 1997 novel, Enduring Love, about the relationship between a science writer and a stalker, was popular with critics, although it was not shortlisted for the Booker Prize.[7][8] It was adapted into a film in 2004. In 1998, he won the Booker Prize for Amsterdam.[9] His next novel, Atonement (2001), received considerable acclaim; Time magazine named it the best novel of 2002, and it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.[10] In 2007, the critically acclaimed film Atonement, directed by Joe Wright and starring Keira Knightley and James McAvoy, was released in cinemas worldwide. His next work, Saturday (2005), follows an especially eventful day in the life of a successful neurosurgeon. Saturday won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for 2005. His novel On Chesil Beach (2007) was shortlisted for the 2007 Man Booker Prize and was adapted into a film starring Saoirse Ronan in 2017, for which McEwan wrote the screenplay. McEwan has also written a number of produced screenplays, a stage play, children's fiction, and an oratorio and a libretto titled For You with music composed by Michael Berkeley.

In 2006, McEwan was accused of plagiarism; specifically that a passage in Atonement (2001) closely echoed a passage from a memoir, No Time for Romance, published in 1977 by Lucilla Andrews. McEwan acknowledged using the book as a source for his work.[11] McEwan had included a brief note at the end of Atonement, referring to Andrews's autobiography, among several other works. The incident recalled critical controversy over his debut novel The Cement Garden, key elements of the plot of which closely mirrored some of those of Our Mother's House, a 1963 novel by British author Julian Gloag, which had also been made into a film. McEwan denied charges of plagiarism, claiming he was unaware of the earlier work.[12] Writing in The Guardian in November 2006, a month after Andrews' death, McEwan professed innocence of plagiarism while acknowledging his debt to the author of No Time for Romance.[13][14][15] Several authors defended him, including John Updike, Martin Amis, Margaret Atwood, Thomas Keneally, Kazuo Ishiguro, Zadie Smith, and Thomas Pynchon.[16][17]

### 2008–present: Political works and continued acclaim

[edit]

McEwan's first novel of the 2010s, Solar, was published by Jonathan Cape and Doubleday in March 2010.[18] In June 2008 at the Hay Festival, McEwan gave a surprise reading of this work-in-progress. The novel includes "a scientist who hopes to save the planet" from the threat of climate change,[19] with inspiration for the novel coming from a Cape Farewell expedition McEwan made in 2005 in which "artists and scientists ... spent several weeks aboard a ship near the north pole discussing environmental concerns". McEwan observed: "The novel's protagonist Michael Beard has been awarded a Nobel prize for his pioneering work on physics, and has discovered that winning the coveted prize has interfered with his work."[19] He said that the work was not a comedy: "I hate comic novels; it's like being wrestled to the ground and being tickled, being forced to laugh",[19] instead, that it had extended comic stretches.

Solar was followed by McEwan's twelfth novel, Sweet Tooth, a meta-fictional historical novel set in the 1970s,[20] and was published in late August 2012.[21] In an interview with The Scotsman newspaper to coincide with publication, McEwan revealed that the impetus for writing Sweet Tooth had been "a way in which I can write a disguised autobiography".[22] He revealed in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, in November 2012, that the film rights to Sweet Tooth had been bought by Working Title Films – the company that had adapted Atonement as a film.[23] Sweet Tooth was followed two years later by The Children Act, which concerned High Court judges, UK family law, and the right to die.[24]

Two years after The Children Act, McEwan's 2016 novel Nutshell, a short novel closer in style and tone to his earlier works, was published. McEwan's next work, a short novella, was titled My Purple Scented Novel – part of which was published previously as a short story by the same title in The New Yorker in 2016.[25] This short work was published to mark McEwan's 70th birthday in June 2018.[26] McEwan followed Nutshell in April 2019 with the alternate history/science fiction novel Machines Like Me. It concerns artificial intelligence and an alternate history in which Great Britain loses the Falklands War and the Labour Party, led by Tony Benn, eventually wins the 1987 UK general election. In September 2019, McEwan announced a quick surprise follow-up novella inspired by Brexit, The Cockroach.[27] McEwan published his novel Lessons in 2022 to much critical acclaim. Andrew Billen of The Times calls it McEwan's "500-page masterpiece",[28] and The New Statesman claims the novel "may well be remembered as one of the finest humanist novels of its age".[29]

## Honours and awards

[edit]

McEwan has been nominated for the Booker Prize six times to date, winning the prize for Amsterdam in 1998.[30] His other nominations were for The Comfort of Strangers (1981, shortlisted), Black Dogs (1992, shortlisted), Atonement (2001, shortlisted), Saturday (2005, longlisted), and On Chesil Beach (2007, shortlisted). McEwan also received nominations for the International Booker Prize in 2005 and 2007.[31] He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL),[32] a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA), a Fellow of the Society of Authors,[33] and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[34] He was awarded the annual Shakespeare Prize by the Alfred Toepfer Foundation, Hamburg, in 1999. He is also a Distinguished Supporter of Humanists UK. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2000 New Year Honours for services to literature.[35][36] In 2005, he was the first recipient of Dickinson College's Harold and Ethel L. Stellfox Visiting Scholar and Writers Program Award,[37] in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. In 2008, McEwan was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Literature by University College London, where he had previously taught English literature.

In 2006, the Board of Trustees of the Kenyon Review honoured McEwan with the Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement, writing that "McEwan's stories, novels, and plays are notable for their fierce artistic dramas, exploring unanticipated and often brutal collisions between the ordinary and the extraordinary".[38] In 2008, The Times named McEwan among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".[39] In 2010, McEwan received the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. The Helmerich Award is presented annually by the Tulsa Library Trust.

On 20 February 2011, McEwan was awarded the Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society.[40] He accepted the prize, despite controversy[41] and pressure from groups and individuals opposed to the Israeli government.[42][43] McEwan responded to his critics, and specifically the group British Writers in Support of Palestine (BWISP), in a letter to The Guardian, stating in part, "There are ways in which art can have a longer reach than politics, and for me the emblem in this respect is Daniel Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra – surely a beam of hope in a dark landscape, though denigrated by the Israeli religious right and Hamas. If BWISP is against this particular project, then clearly we have nothing more to say to each other".[44] McEwan's acceptance speech discussed the complaints against him and provided further insight into his reasons for accepting the award.[45] He also said he will donate the amount of the prize, "ten thousand dollars to Combatants for Peace, an organisation that brings together Israeli ex-soldiers and Palestinian ex-fighters".[45]

In 2012, the University of Sussex presented McEwan with its 50th Anniversary Gold Medal in recognition of his contributions to literature.[46] In 2014, the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas paid $2 million for McEwan's literary archives. The archives include drafts of all of his later novels.[47] In 2018, McEwan was awarded the Bauer-Incroci di civiltà prize in Venice for his literary career.[48] In 2019, McEwan received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.[49]

In 2020, McEwan was awarded the Goethe Medal, a yearly prize given by the Goethe-Institut honouring non-Germans "who have performed outstanding service for the German language and for international cultural relations".[50] According to the jury, McEwan's literary work ("Machines like us") is "imbued with the essence of contradiction and critical, depth-psychological reflection of social phenomena". Despite harsh attacks in his own country, the writer "openly defends himself against narrow-minded nationalisms" and appears as a passionate pro-European. He was appointed Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in the 2023 Birthday Honours for services to literature.[51]

## Views on religion and politics

[edit]

Ian McEwan

In 2008, McEwan publicly spoke out against Islamism for its views on women and on homosexuality. He was quoted as saying that fundamentalist Islam wanted to create a society that he "abhorred". His comments appeared in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera to defend fellow writer Martin Amis against allegations of racism. McEwan, an atheist,[52] said that certain streams of Christianity were "equally absurd" and that he did not "like these medieval visions of the world according to which God is coming to save the faithful and to damn the others".[53] McEwan put forward the following statement on his official site and blog after claiming he was misinterpreted:

Certain remarks of mine to an Italian journalist have been widely misrepresented in the UK press, and on various websites. Contrary to reports, my remarks were not about Islam, but about Islamism – perhaps 'extremism' would be a better term. I grew up in a Muslim country – Libya – and have only warm memories of a dignified, tolerant and hospitable Islamic culture. I was referring in my interview to a tiny minority who preach violent jihad, who incite hatred and violence against 'infidels', apostates, Jews and homosexuals; who in their speeches and on their websites speak passionately against free thought, pluralism, democracy, unveiled women; who will tolerate no other interpretation of Islam but their own and have vilified Sufism and other strands of Islam as apostasy; who have murdered, among others, fellow Muslims by the thousands in the market places of Iraq, Algeria and in the Sudan. Countless Islamic writers, journalists and religious authorities have expressed their disgust at this extremist violence. To speak against such things is hardly 'astonishing' on my part (Independent on Sunday) or original, nor is it 'Islamophobic' and 'right-wing' as one official of the Muslim Council of Britain insists, and nor is it to endorse the failures and brutalities of US foreign policy. It is merely to invoke a common humanity which I hope would be shared by all religions as well as all non-believers.'[54]

In 2007, Christopher Hitchens dedicated his book God Is Not Great to McEwan. In 2008, McEwan was among more than 200,000 signatories of a petition to support Italian journalist Roberto Saviano who received multiple death threats and was placed in police protection after exposing the Mafia-like crime syndicate, Camorra, in his 2006 book Gomorrah. McEwan said he hoped the petition would help "galvanize" the Italian police into taking seriously the "fundamental matter of civil rights and free speech".[55] McEwan also signed a petition to support the release of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning after being convicted of committing adultery.[56] In 2009, McEwan joined the 10:10 project, a movement that supports positive action on climate change by encouraging people to reduce their carbon emissions.[57] On winning the Jerusalem Prize in 2011, McEwan defended himself against criticism for accepting the prize in light of opposition to Israeli policies, saying: "If you didn't go to countries whose foreign policy or domestic policy is screwed up, you'd never get out of bed".[58][59] On accepting the honour, he spoke in favour of Israel's existence, security, and freedoms,[60] while strongly attacking Hamas, Israel's policies in Gaza, and the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories;[61] these were notable words since the audience included politicians such as the Israeli President Shimon Peres and Nir Barkat, the mayor of Jerusalem. McEwan also personally attended a protest in Sheikh Jarrah against the expansion of Israeli settlements.[62] On 28th May, McEwan, alongside Irvine Welsh, Jeanette Winterson and approximately 400 other authors and organisations, co-signed an open letter calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. [63] The letter also describes Israel's military campaign in the territory as "genocidal".

In 2013, McEwan sharply criticised Stephen Hawking for boycotting a conference in Israel as well as the boycott campaign in general, stating that there are many countries "whose governments we might loathe or disapprove of" but "Israel–Palestine has become sort of tribal and a touchstone for a certain portion of the intellectual classes. I say this in the context of thinking it is profoundly wrong of the Israeli government not to be pursuing more actively and positively and creatively a solution with the Palestinians. That's why I think one wants to go to these places to make the point. Turning away will not produce any result."[64] That same year, as part of a wide-ranging interview with Channel 4 News, McEwan discussed the furore that surrounded his remarks on Islamism in 2008, stating: "I remember getting a lot of stick five or six years ago saying something disobliging about jihadists. There were voices, particularly on the left, that thought anyone who criticised Islamism was really criticising Islam and therefore racist. Well, those voices have gone quiet because the local atrocities committed by Islamists whether in Pakistan or Mali is so self-evidently vile."[65] In the same interview, McEwan remarked that he felt protesters of the 2003 Iraq War were "vindicated" by what happened subsequently; argued that the chief legacy of the Iraq War was that "sometimes there are things we could do [before that war] which we no longer can" in foreign affairs; stated that at one point prior to the 2003 invasion he had hoped to be able to seek an audience with Tony Blair to persuade him not to go ahead with the war; and as someone who voted for the Liberal Democrats in the 2010 UK general election that the then current coalition government of the United Kingdom should end, stating "Let's either have a Tory government or let Ed Miliband try something different" to try and turn around a country of "great inequity". McEwan is traditionally a Labour Party supporter and said he had his "fingers crossed" that Miliband would become prime minister.[65]

Following the referendum on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union resulting in a win for the Leave or Brexit campaign in June 2016, McEwan wrote a critical opinion article for The Guardian titled "Britain is changed utterly. Unless this summer is just a bad dream", published on 9 July 2016.[66] In the article, McEwan wrote of the consequences of the Brexit vote: "Everything is changed utterly. Or about to be, as soon as your new leader is chosen. The country you live in, the parliamentary democracy that ruled it, for good or bad, has been trumped by a plebiscite of dubious purpose and unacknowledged status. From our agriculture to our science and our universities, from our law to our international relations to our commerce and trade and politics, and who and what we are in the world – all is up for a curious, unequal renegotiation with our European neighbours".[66] McEwan's piece appeared to conclude with a sense of bewilderment and unease at how events were panning out, anticipating the ascension of Theresa May to the leadership of the Conservative Party and her appointment as prime minister, and noting how the previously unthinkable in British politics had actually happened.[66] McEwan's article was published on 9 July, and May effectively won the 2016 Conservative Party leadership election on 11 July, which precipitated her appointment as prime minister two days later. In May 2017, speaking at a London conference on Brexit, apparently referring to what he believed to be the older demographic of leave voters, McEwan stated that "one and a half million oldsters freshly in their graves" would result in a putative second referendum returning a Remain outcome.[67]

## Personal life

[edit]

McEwan lives in London, and has been married twice. His first marriage was to Penny Allen, an astrologer and alternative practitioner, with whom he had two sons. The marriage ended in 1995. Two years later in 1997, McEwan married Annalena McAfee, a journalist and writer who was formerly the editor of The Guardian's Review section.[68]

In 2002, McEwan discovered that he had a brother who had been given up for adoption during the Second World War; the story became public in 2007.[69] The brother, a bricklayer named David Sharp, was born six years earlier than McEwan when their mother was married to a different man. Sharp has the same mother and father as McEwan but was born from an affair that occurred before they married. After her first husband was killed in combat, McEwan's mother married her lover, and Ian was born a few years later.[70] The brothers are in regular contact and McEwan has written a foreword to Sharp's memoir.

McEwan was a long-time friend of the writer and polemicist Christopher Hitchens.[20]

## Bibliography

[edit]

### Novels

[edit]

* The Cement Garden (1978)
* The Comfort of Strangers (1981)
* The Child in Time (1987)
* The Innocent (1990)
* Black Dogs (1992)
* Enduring Love (1997)
* Amsterdam (1998)
* Atonement (2001)
* Saturday (2005)
* On Chesil Beach (2007)
* Solar (2010)
* Sweet Tooth (2012)
* The Children Act (2014)
* Nutshell (2016)
* Machines Like Me (2019)
* The Cockroach (2019) (novella)
* Lessons (2022)
* The Madness (2025)
* What We Can Know (2025)[71]

### Short stories

[edit]

* First Love, Last Rites (1975) (Collection of short stories)
* In Between the Sheets (1978) (Collection of short stories)
* The Short Stories (1995) (Collection of short stories)
* My Purple Scented Novel (2016 in The New Yorker;[72]
2018 as a booklet commemorating McEwan's 70th birthday)

### Children's fiction

[edit]

* Rose Blanche (1985)
* The Daydreamer (1994)

### Plays

[edit]

* Jack Flea's Birthday Celebration (1976)
* The Imitation Game (1980)

### Screenplays

[edit]

* The Ploughman's Lunch (1983)
* Soursweet (1988)
* The Good Son (1993)
* On Chesil Beach (2017)
* The Children Act (2017)

### Oratorio

[edit]

* Or Shall We Die? (1983)

### Libretto

[edit]

* For You (2008)

### Film adaptations

[edit]

* Last Day of Summer (1984)
* The Comfort of Strangers (1990)
* The Cement Garden (1993)
* The Innocent (1993)
* First Love, Last Rites (1997)
* Solid Geometry (2002)
* Enduring Love (2004)
* Atonement (2007)
* On Chesil Beach (2017)
* The Children Act (2017)
* The Child in Time (2017)
* Sweet Tooth (in development)

### Non-fiction

[edit]

* Science (2019)

|

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "The 100 most powerful people in British culture". The Daily Telegraph. 9 November 2016. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022.
2. ^ "Ian McEwan". Film reference. Retrieved 26 August 2011.
3. ^ Cooke, Rachel (19 August 2012). "Ian McEwan: 'I had the time of my life'". The Guardian.
4. ^ Jaillant, Lise. "Myth Maker: Malcolm Bradbury and the Creation of Creative Writing at UEA". New Writing: The International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing (2016)
5. ^ Ian McEwan: Writers and Their Work by Kiernan Ryan publ 1994
6. ^ Walsh, John (27 January 2007). "Ian McEwan: Here's the twist". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 21 January 2007. Retrieved 22 March 2007.
7. ^ Knorr, Katherine (9 October 1997). "Enduring Love". International Herald Tribune. Archived from the original on 30 March 2008. Retrieved 22 March 2007.
8. ^ "Ian McEwan's Family Values". Boston Review. Archived from the original on 2 October 2006. Retrieved 21 March 2007.
9. ^ "Prize archive: 1998". Booker Prize. Retrieved 7 July 2010.
10. ^ Man Booker Prize Website Retrieved 13 April 2010
11. ^ Cowell, Alan (28 November 2006). "Eyebrows Are Raised Over Passages in a Best Seller by Ian McEwan". The New York Times.
12. ^ Alan Cowell (28 November 2006). "Eyebrows Are Raised Over Passages in a Best Seller by Ian McEwan". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 July 2010.
13. ^ Ian McEwan (27 November 2006). "An inspiration, yes. Did I copy from another author? No". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 27 November 2006.
14. ^ Hoyle, Ben (27 November 2006). "McEwan hits back at call for atonement". The Times. London. Archived from the original on 2 December 2008. Retrieved 27 November 2006.
15. ^ "McEwan accused of copying writer's memoirs". PR inside. Archived from the original on 26 March 2007. Retrieved 27 November 2006.
16. ^ Reynolds, Nigel (6 December 2006). "Recluse speaks out to defend McEwan". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 4 September 2007. Retrieved 25 April 2010.
17. ^ Bell, Dan (6 December 2006). "Pynchon backs McEwan in 'copying' row". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 25 April 2010.
18. ^ "Solar". Ian Mcewan's Website. Archived from the original on 25 August 2011. Retrieved 26 August 2011.
19. ^ a b c Soal, Judith (2 June 2008). "McEwan sees funny side of climate change in novel reading". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
20. ^ a b Farndale, Nigel (7 March 2011). "Ian McEwan interview". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 9 March 2011.
21. ^ "Sweet Tooth" Archived 3 May 2012 at the Wayback Machine, at IanMcEwan.com.
22. ^ "In the line of fire SFA hands Davis Scottish Cup final role". www.scotsman.com. 6 May 2005. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
23. ^ Chai, Barbara (27 October 2012). "Working Title Secures Film Rights to Ian McEwan's New Novel, 'Sweet Tooth'". The Wall Street Journal.
24. ^ Stock, Jon (3 May 2013). "Ian McEwan: John le Carré deserves Booker". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022.
25. ^ McEwan, Ian (21 March 2016). "My Purple Scented Novel". The New Yorker. Retrieved 28 March 2018 – via www.newyorker.com.
26. ^ My Purple Scented Novel by Ian McEwan. www.penguin.co.uk. Retrieved 28 March 2018.
27. ^ Cain, Sian (12 September 2019). "Ian McEwan announces surprise Brexit satire, The Cockroach". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
28. ^ Billen, Andrew (12 June 2023). "Ian McEwan: 'My last novel? I feel as if I've said as much as I know'". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 12 June 2023.
29. ^ Thomas-Corr, Johanna (31 August 2022). "Ian McEwan and the mess of living". New Statesman. Retrieved 12 June 2023.
30. ^ "Ian McEwan | The Booker Prizes". thebookerprizes.com. 21 June 1948. Retrieved 12 June 2023.
31. ^ "Man Booker". Themanbookerprize.com. Archived from the original on 19 August 2011. Retrieved 26 August 2011.
32. ^ "Ian McEwan". RSL. September 2023. Retrieved 16 October 2024.
33. ^ "Ian McEwan". Society of Authors. Retrieved 16 October 2024.
34. ^ "Mr. Ian Russell McEwan". AMACAD. September 2024. Retrieved 16 October 2024.
35. ^ "No. 55710". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 1999. p. 10.
36. ^ "Ian McEwan". Contemporary Writers. British Council. Archived from the original on 17 June 2006. Retrieved 3 June 2006.
37. ^ "Poet Inspires Dickinson College Alumna's $1.5 Million Gift". 23 September 2005. Archived from the original on 5 February 2011.
38. ^ "Kenyon Review for Literary Achievement". KenyonReview.org.
39. ^ Hosking, Patrick; Wighton, David (5 January 2008). "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". The Times. London. Archived from the original on 11 May 2008. Retrieved 1 February 2010.
40. ^ "the jerusalem prize". Jerusalem Book Fair. Retrieved 13 February 2011.
41. ^ "McEwan defends decision to accept Jerusalem Prize". Archived 29 September 2013 at the Wayback Machine Jewish Journal. 26 January 2011. 26 January 2011.
42. ^ Bates, Stephen (19 January 2011). "Ian McEwan says he will accept Jerusalem prize". The Guardian. London.
43. ^ "Ian McEwan should turn down the prize". The Guardian. London. 27 January 2011.
44. ^ "Israel critics should respect my decision" The Guardian, 26 January 2011.
45. ^ a b "Jerusalem Prize Acceptance Speech". Ianmcewan.com. Archived from the original on 2 August 2011. Retrieved 26 August 2011.
46. ^ "Sussex awards gold medals to its world-leading alumni and past academics", University of Sussex, News, 13 July 2012.
47. ^ "Ransom Center Pays $2 Million for Ian McEwan Papers", The New York Times, 16 May 2014.
48. ^ Pagan, Alberto (4 April 2018). "Ian McEwan inuagura Incorci di Civiltà 2018". NonSoloCinema (in Italian). Retrieved 13 February 2024.
49. ^ "Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement.
50. ^ "Awardees - Goethe-Institut". www.goethe.de. Retrieved 28 April 2020.
51. ^ "No. 64082". The London Gazette (Supplement). 17 June 2023. p. B6.
52. ^ Solomon, Deborah (2 December 2007). "A Sinner's Tale". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
53. ^ Popham, Peter (22 June 2008). "'I despise Islamism': Ian McEwan faces backlash over press interview". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 22 June 2008. Retrieved 25 June 2008.
54. ^ Ian McEwan (26 June 2008). "McEwan Addresses Recent Statement on Islamism". ian-mcewan.blogspot.com. Retrieved 7 July 2010.
55. ^ Flood, Alison (24 October 2008). "Ian McEwan condemns 'thuggery' of Neapolitan mafia". The Guardian. UK. Retrieved 26 August 2011.
56. ^ "Iran stoning case woman ordered to name campaigners". The Guardian. London. 22 July 2010.
57. ^ "Who's doing 10:10? | 10:10". Archived from the original on 28 September 2011. Retrieved 4 December 2012.
58. ^ "Palestinian writers shun Ian McEwan over Israel honour". Reuters. 18 February 2011. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016.
59. ^ Harriet Sherwood in Tel Aviv (18 February 2011). "McEwan to accept Israeli book award but criticise occupation". The Guardian. UK. Retrieved 26 August 2011.
60. ^ "RCW". Rcwlitagency.com. Archived from the original on 29 August 2011. Retrieved 26 August 2011.
61. ^ "Ian McEwan attacks Israeli policies | Jerusalem prize". Sydney Morning Herald. 22 February 2011. Retrieved 26 August 2011.
62. ^ Gordon, Evelyn (20 February 2011). "Ian McEwan joins left-wing protest in Sheikh Jarrah". Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 26 August 2011.
63. ^ https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0qgpve3qzgo
64. ^ Booth and Harriet Sherwood, "Noam Chomsky helped lobby Stephen Hawking to stage Israel boycott", The Guardian, 10 May 2013.
65. ^ a b "Iraq war marchers 'vindicated' a decade on - Ian McEwan", 4 News, 11 February 2013.
66. ^ a b c Ian McEwan, "Britain is changed utterly. Unless this summer is just a bad dream", The Guardian, 9 July 2016.
67. ^ Dan Roberts, "Death of '1.5m oldsters' could swing second Brexit vote, says Ian McEwan", The Guardian, 12 May 2017
68. ^ O'Kelly, Lisa (10 April 2011). "Annalena McAfee: 'I see myself as a recovering journalist'". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 May 2021.
69. ^ Cowell, Alan (17 January 2007). "Ian McEwan's life takes twist with discovery of a brother". International Herald Tribune. Retrieved 23 March 2007.
70. ^ "Novelist McEwan discovers brother". BBC News. 11 January 2007. Retrieved 22 March 2007.
71. ^ Ellah Creamer (7 February 2025). "Ian McEwan novel What We Can Know to be published this year". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 February 2025.
72. ^ McEwan, Ian (21 March 2016). "My Purple Scented Novel". New Yorker. Retrieved 25 July 2018.

## Further reading

[edit]

* Byrnes, Christina (1995), Sex and Sexuality in Ian McEwan's Work, Nottingham, England: Pauper's Press. ISBN 0-946650-56-X
* Byrnes, Christina (2002), The Work of Ian McEwan: A Psychodynamic Approach, Nottingham, England: Paupers' Press. ISBN 0-946650-75-6
* Byrnes, Bernie C. (2006), Ian McEwan's 'Atonement' and 'Saturday', Nottingham, England: Paupers' Press. ISBN 0-946650-90-X
* Byrnes, Bernie C. (2008), McEwan's Only Childhood, Nottingham: Paupers' Press. ISBN 0-946650-94-2
* Byrnes, Bernie C. (2009), Ian McEwan's 'On Chesil Beach': the transmutation of a secret, Nottingham: Paupers' Press. ISBN 9780946650972
* Childs, Peter (2005), The Fiction of Ian McEwan (Readers' Guides to Essential Criticism), Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 1-4039-1909-7
* D'Eliva, Gaetano, and Christopher Williams, (1986), La Nuova Letteratura Inglese Ian McEwan, Schena Editore.
* Dodou, Katherina (2009), Childhood Without Children: Ian McEwan and the Critical Study of the Child, Uppsala, Sweden: Uppsala University. ISBN 978-91-506-2112-9
* Groes, Sebastian (2009), Ian McEwan, Continuum. ISBN 978-0-8264-9722-2
* Head, Dominic, (2007), Ian McEwan, Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-6657-3
* Hoare, Liam (14 November 2012). "Ian McEwan, novelist-historian". Salon. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
* The Effects of Conflict in the Novels of Ian McEwan. Jensen, Morten H. (2005)
* Malcolm, David (2002), Understanding Ian McEwan, University of South Carolina. ISBN 1-57003-436-2
* Möller, Swantje (2011), Coming to Terms with Crisis: Disorientation and Reorientation in the Novels of Ian McEwan, Winter. ISBN 978-3-8253-5880-8
* Pedot, Richard (1999), Perversions Textuelles dans la Fiction d'Ian McEwan, Editions l'Harmattan.
* Reynolds, Margaret, and Jonathan Noakes, (2002), Ian McEwan: The Essential Guide, Vintage. ISBN 0-09-943755-4
* Roberts, Ryan (2010), Conversations with Ian McEwan, University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-1-60473-420-1
* Rooney, Anne (2006), Atonement, York Notes. ISBN 1-4058-3561-3
* Rooney, Anne (2010), Pissing in the Wind?, The New Humanist, May 2010
* Ryan, Kiernan (1994), Ian McEwan (Writers and Their Work), Northcote House. ISBN 0-7463-0742-X
* Slay Jr., Jack (1996), Ian McEwan (Twayne's English Authors Series), Twayne Publishers. ISBN 0-8057-4578-5
* Williams, Christopher (1993) Ian McEwan's The Cement Garden and the Tradition of the Child/Adolescent as 'I-Narrator Biblioteca della Ricerca, Schena Editore.
* Wells, Lynn, (2010) Ian McEwan, Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 1-4039-4274-9
* Zalewski, Daniel (23 February 2009). "The Background Hum: Ian McEwan's art of unease". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 19 February 2014.

### Interviews

[edit]

* Interview with McEwan. BBC Video (30 mins)
* Powells.com interview
* Unedited interview with Professor Richard Dawkins on YouTube
* Ian McEwan interview with Charlie Rose, 1 June 2007. (Video, 26 mins)
* Salon.com interview 1998
* "Ian McEwan, The Art of Fiction". Paris Review. Summer 2002 No. 173
* Ian McEwan: On how to make love work in fiction. Filmed at Louisiana Literature festival 2013\. Video interview by Louisiana Channel.
* Bookworm Interviews (Audio) with Michael Silverblatt: May 1999, July 2002, May 2005, May 2010
* Christoph Amend, Jochen Wegner: Ian McEwan, Why Do You Want to Live Forever? in: Alles Gesagt? interviewpodcast from Zeit Online from December 2019

## External links

[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ian McEwan.

Wikiquote has quotations related to Ian McEwan.

* McEwan official website
* Ian McEwan at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
* Ian McEwan at IMDb

* v
* t
* e

Works by Ian McEwan

Novels|

* The Cement Garden (1978)
* The Comfort of Strangers (1981)
* The Child in Time (1987)
* The Innocent (1990)
* Black Dogs (1992)
* Enduring Love (1997)
* Amsterdam (1998)
* Atonement (2001)
* Saturday (2005)
* On Chesil Beach (2007)
* Solar (2010)
* Sweet Tooth (2012)
* The Children Act (2014)
* Nutshell (2016)
* Machines Like Me (2019)
* The Cockroach (2019)
* Lessons (2022)
* What We Can Know (2025)

Story collections|

* First Love, Last Rites (1975)
* In Between the Sheets (1978)

Children's novels|

* Rose Blanche (1985)
* The Daydreamer (1994)

Television plays|

* Jack Flea's Birthday Celebration (1976)
* The Imitation Game (1980)
* Solid Geometry (2002)

Screenplays|

* The Ploughman's Lunch (1983)
* Soursweet (1988)
* The Good Son (1993)
* The Innocent (1993)
* On Chesil Beach (2017)
* The Children Act (2017)

* v
* t
* e

Recipients of the Booker Prize

* List of winners and nominated authors
* The Best of the Booker
* The Golden Man Booker
* International Booker Prize

1969–79|

* 1969: P. H. Newby (Something to Answer For)
* 1970: Bernice Rubens (The Elected Member)
* 1970 Lost Prize: J. G. Farrell (Troubles)
* 1971: V. S. Naipaul (In a Free State)
* 1972: John Berger (G.)
* 1973: J. G. Farrell (The Siege of Krishnapur)
* 1974: Nadine Gordimer (The Conservationist) and Stanley Middleton (Holiday)
* 1975: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (Heat and Dust)
* 1976: David Storey (Saville)
* 1977: Paul Scott (Staying On)
* 1978: Iris Murdoch (The Sea, The Sea)
* 1979: Penelope Fitzgerald (Offshore)

1980s|

* 1980: William Golding (Rites of Passage)
* 1981: Salman Rushdie (Midnight's Children)
* 1982: Thomas Keneally (Schindler's Ark)
* 1983: J. M. Coetzee (Life & Times of Michael K)
* 1984: Anita Brookner (Hotel du Lac)
* 1985: Keri Hulme (The Bone People)
* 1986: Kingsley Amis (The Old Devils)
* 1987: Penelope Lively (Moon Tiger)
* 1988: Peter Carey (Oscar and Lucinda)
* 1989: Kazuo Ishiguro (The Remains of the Day)

1990s|

* 1990: A. S. Byatt (Possession)
* 1991: Ben Okri (The Famished Road)
* 1992: Michael Ondaatje (The English Patient) and Barry Unsworth (Sacred Hunger)
* 1993: Roddy Doyle (Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha)
* 1994: James Kelman (How Late It Was, How Late)
* 1995: Pat Barker (The Ghost Road)
* 1996: Graham Swift (Last Orders)
* 1997: Arundhati Roy (The God of Small Things)
* 1998: Ian McEwan (Amsterdam)
* 1999: J. M. Coetzee (Disgrace)

2000s|

* 2000: Margaret Atwood (The Blind Assassin)
* 2001: Peter Carey (True History of the Kelly Gang)
* 2002: Yann Martel (Life of Pi)
* 2003: DBC Pierre (Vernon God Little)
* 2004: Alan Hollinghurst (The Line of Beauty)
* 2005: John Banville (The Sea)
* 2006: Kiran Desai (The Inheritance of Loss)
* 2007: Anne Enright (The Gathering)
* 2008: Aravind Adiga (The White Tiger)
* 2009: Hilary Mantel (Wolf Hall)

2010s|

* 2010: Howard Jacobson (The Finkler Question)
* 2011: Julian Barnes (The Sense of an Ending)
* 2012: Hilary Mantel (Bring Up the Bodies)
* 2013: Eleanor Catton (The Luminaries)
* 2014: Richard Flanagan (The Narrow Road to the Deep North)
* 2015: Marlon James (A Brief History of Seven Killings)
* 2016: Paul Beatty (The Sellout)
* 2017: George Saunders (Lincoln in the Bardo)
* 2018: Anna Burns (Milkman)
* 2019: Margaret Atwood (The Testaments) and Bernardine Evaristo (Girl, Woman, Other)

2020s|

* 2020: Douglas Stuart (Shuggie Bain)
* 2021: Damon Galgut (The Promise)
* 2022: Shehan Karunatilaka (The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida)
* 2023: Paul Lynch (Prophet Song)
* 2024: Samantha Harvey (Orbital)

Authority control databases

International|

* ISNI
* VIAF
* FAST
* WorldCat

National|

* Germany
* United States
* France
* BnF data
* Japan
* Italy
* Australia
* Czech Republic
* Spain
* Portugal
* Netherlands
* Norway
* Latvia
* Croatia
* Chile
* Greece
* Korea
* Sweden
* Poland
* Israel
* Catalonia
* Belgium

Artists|

* MusicBrainz
* FID

People|

* Trove
* Deutsche Biographie
* DDB

Other|

* IdRef
* SNAC

*[m.]: married
*[div.]: divorced
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*[e]: Edit this template