Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan is a British novelist and screenwriter. Born in 1948 into a working-class family, he spent much of his childhood abroad, in countries where his father was posted for military service. The family returned to England when McEwan was 12. He later attended college at the University of Sussex, earning a degree in English literature in 1970. McEwan began his career writing Gothic short fiction, and his first published work was the collection of short stories First Love, Last Rites (1975). His first novel, The Cement Garden (1978), continued his focus on Gothic themes. McEwan achieved mainstream success with his 1997 novel Enduring Love, a work of realism that marked a departure from the more macabre themes that dominated his earlier works. In 1998, he won the Booker Prize for his novel Amsterdam. His subsequent novel, Atonement (2001), received critical and commercial acclaim; in 2007 it was adapted as a film starring Keira Knightley and James McAvoy. McEwan’s later novels include Solar (2010) and Sweet Tooth (2012), both of which feature more political themes, and Nutshell (2016), a reimagining of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Machines Like Me, which was published in 2019, received mixed (although generally positive) reviews. His most recent novel is Lessons, published in 2022. McEwan’s works are lauded among critics, and he has won or been nominated for numerous prestigious awards, including the Booker Prize, for which he has been nominated six times. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Today, McEwan lives in London with his second wife, the journalist, writer, and former Guardian editor Annalena McAfee.