McEwan, << muh KYOO uhn, >> Ian (1948-…), is a British novelist and short-story writer known for the dark humor and disturbing, sometimes nightmarish, subject matter of his fiction. McEwan’s works often examine the psychological effects that an event has upon people and their relationships. McEwan is fascinated by the private stories of individuals set within the wider world in which they live.
McEwan won the Booker Prize, the United Kingdom’s best-known literary award, for his novel Amsterdam (1998). The novel tells the story of two men who are friends and who are both former lovers of a recently deceased socialite. The Child in Time (1987) explores the emotional consequences for a couple whose daughter is kidnapped. The novel won the 1987 Whitbread Prize (now the Costa Book Award), another of the United Kingdom’s top literary awards.
McEwan’s novel Enduring Love (1997) describes the effect of a tragic accident on a married couple. Atonement (2001) explores the consequences of a young girl’s false accusation of her sister’s lover for a crime he did not commit. McEwan’s other novels include The Cement Garden (1978), his first novel, about a family of orphaned children; The Comfort of Strangers (1981), set in Venice; The Innocent (1990), a spy novel set in Berlin after World War II (1939-1945); Black Dogs (1992), a novel of interwoven themes set in England, Berlin, and Poland; Saturday (2005), about a violent day in the life of a London doctor; and On Chesil Beach (2007), about the difficult wedding night of a couple in a hotel on the seacoast of England. His novel Solar (2010) deals with global warming. Sweet Tooth (2012) is both a spy novel and a love story set in England in 1972. The Children Act (2014) describes the relationship between a middle-aged female judge and a 17-year-old boy dying of leukemia. Nutshell (2016) is a short novel of murder and betrayal told from the perspective of a baby still in its mother’s womb. Machines Like Me (2019) describes a love triangle between a man, a woman, and a robot. Lessons (2022) explores one man’s life in a changing modern world. McEwan also wrote a children’s book, The Daydreamer (1994).
McEwan first won acclaim for his short fiction. His short-story collection First Love, Last Rites (1975) won the 1976 Somerset Maugham Award, given to authors under the age of 35. Critics also praised McEwan’s collection In Between the Sheets (1977). McEwan has written television scripts collected in The Imitation Game (1981) and the screenplays The Ploughman’s Lunch (1985) and Sour Sweet (1988). He provided the text for Or Shall We Die (1983), an antinuclear choral work by the English composer Michael Berkeley. He also wrote the text for Berkeley’s opera, For You (2008).
McEwan’s essay “The Day of Judgment” (2008) describes end-of-the-world stories among Christian and Islamic fundamentalists, along with several public interviews on the subject. The essay stirred controversy in England about the limits of toleration and the threats of terror in the modern world.
Ian Russell McEwan was born on June 21, 1948, in Aldershot, England. As the son of a military father, he lived much of his early life abroad in Europe, Asia, and North Africa. McEwan returned to England and received a B.A. degree from the University of Sussex in 1970 and an M.A. from the University of East Anglia in 1971.
