McEwan, Ian

McEwan, Ian (Ian Russell McEwan) (mukyOO'un) [key], 1948–, English novelist, b. Aldershot, grad. Univ. of Sussex (B.A., 1970), Univ. of East Anglia (M.A., 1971). His early short-story collections, First Love, Last Rites (1975) and Between the Sheets (1978), and novels, The Cement Garden (1978) and The Comfort of Strangers (1981), gained recognition for their experimentations with form and their tone of macabre menace, violence, and obsessive sexuality. In later novels McEwan moved away from his more perverse themes while continuing to display a keen psychological insight into his characters and continuing to explore ways that extreme situations impact ordinary people. The Child in Time (1987, Whitbread Prize), the first of his mature novels, tells of the terrible repercussions a baby's kidnapping has on her parents. McEwan was awarded the Booker Prize for his satirical novel Amsterdam (1998) and was acclaimed for Atonement (2001), a disquieting tale of childish misinterpretation and moral responsibility, and Saturday (2005), the story of an event-filled day in the life of a neurosurgeon in post-9/11 Britain. His other novels include The Innocent (1989), Black Dogs (1992), Enduring Love (1998), and On Chesil Beach (2007). McEwan also has written radio, television, and film scripts and children's books.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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