Ian McEwan

Born in 1948, the son of a Scots sergeant-major, Ian McEwan's childhood was a typical army one of the time - moving from Aldershot to Singapore and then again to Tripoli so at the age of eleven he was sent away to Woolverstone Hall, a state-run boarding school. He describes himself as 'a very mediocre pupil' until he was seventeen, when he began to find English literature exciting. After graduating from Sussex University he went on to do an MA course in creative writing at East Anglia, under the direction of Malcolm Bradbury and Angus Wilson, and began writing short stories. His first short story, Homemade, was accepted by The New American Review and the money earned from its publication paid the way for a trip to Afghanistan.

In 1972 he returned to England and taught English as a second language whilst writing. In 1975 his volume of short stories First Love, Last Rites was published to sensational critical acclaim. Al Alvarez hailed it as a 'brilliant debut by the most promising writer around' and Anthony Thwaite described the book as 'a brilliant performance... with an originality astonishing for a writer still in his twenties.' It won the Somerset Maugham Award and revitalised the short story form.

In 1978, his second collection of stories In Between the Sheets, with the now familiar McEwan themes of adolescent sexual awakenings, the perverse and the macabre, shocked the English literary establishment. 'What is strange and subterranean about human nature interest me far more than writing fiction about people accumulating wealth or losing wealth.'

In 1978, The Cement Garden, his first novel, was published to great acclaim - 'a near perfect novelist' (The Spectator). In 1979, his television play Solid Geometry made the headlines when the BBC banned it, ostensibly for a scene displaying a pickled penis in a jar...and Ian McEwan was established as 'a leading literary spokesman for his generation'.

In 1980, the BBC production of The Imitation Game gained instant recognition - 'A Play for Today of rare distinction' (Clive James). In 1981, his second novel The Comfort of Strangers was published and again, hailed as the work of one of the most outstanding writers of the 20th century. 'McEwan has already created a style and a vision of his own...no-one can afford not to read him.' (John Fowles). The Comfort of Strangers was shortlisted for the 1981 Booker Prize.

The Child in Time, his third novel, published in 1987, won the Whitbread Award for the best novel of that year. Phenomenally well received, it drew high praise from Craig Raine and Jeanette Winterson and John Carey said in the Sunday Times: 'If you want to be appalled, refreshed, exhilarated, enlivened - read it.'

The Innocent, published in 1990, was an extraordinary achievement. He took a genre until then dominated by Deighton and le Carre - and completely reinvented it. 'It displays the immaculate artistry we have come to expect from one of Britain's most highly respected novelists,' Sunday Times.

Black Dogs was published in 1993 and once again the plaudits followed; '...testament to one of recent fiction's most remarkable regeneration: McEwan's transformation from a purveyor of knowingly nasty tales to a novelist unsurpassed for his responsive, responsible humanity.' Peter Kemp, Sunday Times

Enduring Love was published in September 1997 to huge critical and commercial success; ‘Enduring Love is an excellent book, executed with all McEwan’s customary panache, all his usual readability and screw-tightening.’ Mail on Sunday. The film adaptation is released in November 2004.

Atonement was published in 2002 and went on to be a huge bestseller. --Random House Audiobooks

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