Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan
Paris, 2011
Born	Ian Russell McEwan[1] (1948-06-21) 21 June 1948 (age 64) Aldershot, England
Occupation	Novelist, screenwriter
Nationality	English[2]
Period	1975–present
Spouse(s)	Penny Allen (1982–1995) Annalena McAfee (1997–present)
www.ianmcewan.com

Ian Russell McEwan, CBE, FRSA, FRSL (born 21 June 1948) is an English novelist and screenwriter. In 2008, The Times featured him on their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".

McEwan began his career writing sparse, Gothic short stories. The Cement Garden (1978) and The Comfort of Strangers (1981) were his first two novels, and earned him the nickname "Ian Macabre". These were followed by three novels of some success in the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1997, he published Enduring Love, which was made into a film. He won the Man Booker Prize with Amsterdam (1998). In 2001, he published Atonement, which was made into an Oscar-winning film. This was followed by Saturday (2005), On Chesil Beach (2007), Solar (2010), and Sweet Tooth (2012). In 2011, he was awarded the Jerusalem Prize.

Early life [edit]

McEwan was born in Aldershot, Hampshire, on 21 June 1948, the son of David McEwan and Rose Lilian Violet (née Moore).^[1] His father was a working class Scotsman who had worked his way up through the army to the rank of major.^[3] He 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 twelve. He was educated at Woolverstone Hall School; the University of Sussex, receiving his degree in English literature in 1970; and the University of East Anglia, where he was one of the first graduates of Malcolm Bradbury and Angus Wilson's pioneering creative writing course.

Career [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.^[4] His second collection of short stories, In Between the Sheets, was published in 1978. The Cement Garden (1978) and The Comfort of Strangers (1981) were his two earliest novels, both of which were adapted into films. The nature of these works caused him to be nicknamed "Ian Macabre".^[5] These were followed by The Child in Time (1987), winner of the 1987 Whitbread Novel Award; The Innocent (1990); and Black Dogs (1992). McEwan has also written two children's books, Rose Blanche (1985) 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.^[6][7] It was adapted into a film in 2004. In 1998, he won the Man Booker Prize for Amsterdam.^[8] 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.^[9] In 2007, the critically acclaimed movie 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, and his novel On Chesil Beach (2007) was shortlisted for the 2007 Booker Prize. McEwan has also written a number of produced screenplays, a stage play, children's fiction, an oratorio and a libretto titled For You with music composed by Michael Berkeley.

Solar, was published by Jonathan Cape and Doubleday in March 2010.^[10] 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."^[11] from the threat of climate change, 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 noted "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".^[11] 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",^[11] instead, that it had extended comic stretches. McEwan's twelfth novel, Sweet Tooth, is historical in nature and set in the 1970s.,^[12] and was published in late August 2012.^[13] 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”.^[14] McEwan revealed that the film rights to Sweet Tooth were bought by Working Title Films – the company that brought Atonement to the screen – in an interview with the Wall Street Journal in November 2012.^[15]

In 2006 he 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.^[16][17] 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. ^[18] 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.^[19][20][21] Several authors defended him, including John Updike, Martin Amis, Margaret Atwood, Thomas Keneally, Kazuo Ishiguro, Zadie Smith, and Thomas Pynchon.^[22][23].

Awards and honours [edit]

McEwan has been nominated for the Man Booker prize six times to date, winning the Prize for Amsterdam in 1998. 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 Man Booker International Prize in 2005 and 2007.^[24]

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was awarded the Shakespeare Prize by the Alfred Toepfer Foundation, Hamburg, in 1999. He is also a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association. He was awarded a CBE in 2000.^[25] In 2005, he was the first recipient of Dickinson College's Harold and Ethel L. Stellfox Visiting Scholar and Writers Program Award,^[26] in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. In 2008, McEwan was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Literature by University College, London, where he used to teach English literature. In 2008, The Times named McEwan among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".^[27]

In 2012 the University of Sussex presented McEwan with its 50th Anniversary Gold Medal in recognition of his contributions to literature.^[28]

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, he was awarded the Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society.^[29] He accepted the prize, despite controversy^[30] and pressure from groups and individuals opposed to the Israeli government.^[31][32] 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."^[33] McEwan's acceptance speech discussed the complaints against him and provided further insight into his reasons for accepting the award.^[34] 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."^[34]

Personal life [edit]

He has been married twice. His 13-year marriage to spiritual healer and therapist Penny Allen ended in 1995 and was followed by a bitter custody battle over their two sons.^[35] His second wife, Annalena McAfee, was formerly the editor of The Guardian's Review section.

In 2002, McEwan discovered that he had a brother who had been given up for adoption during World War II; the story became public in 2007.^[36] The brother, a bricklayer named David Sharp, was born six years earlier than McEwan, when his mother was married to a different man. Sharp has the same parents as McEwan but was born from an affair between them that occurred before their marriage. After her first husband was killed in combat, McEwan's mother married her lover, and Ian was born a few years later.^[37] The brothers are in regular contact, and McEwan has written a foreword to Sharp's memoir.

Views on religion and politics [edit]

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,^[38] said that certain streams of Christianity were "equally absurd" and that he didn't "like these medieval visions of the world according to which God is coming to save the faithful and to damn the others."^[39]

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 U.S. 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.'^[40]

In 2008, McEwan was among a list of more than 200,000 writers of a petition to support Roberto Saviano, in exposing the Neapolitan mafia in the book Gomorrah. The petition urges Italian police to assure the full protection of Saviano from the mafia, while comparing the mob's threats against Saviano to "the tactics used by extremist religious groups".^[41]

McEwan lent his support to the campaign to release Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning after being convicted of committing adultery.^[42]

On winning the Jerusalem Prize, 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".^[43][44] On accepting the honour he spoke in favour of Israel's existence, security, and freedoms^[45] while strongly attacking Hamas, as well as Israel's policies in Gaza, and the expansion of settlements,^[46] notable as the audience included political leaders such as Israeli President Shimon Peres and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat. He also personally attended a protest against the expansion of Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory.^[47]

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.^[48]

In 2013 as part of a wide-ranging interview with Channel 4 News, McEwan reflected upon 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."^[49] In the same interview, McEwan remarked that he felt that protestors 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 that the 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".^[49]

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)

Short story collections [edit]

• First Love, Last Rites (1975)
• In Between the Sheets (1978)
• The Short Stories (1995)

Children's fiction [edit]

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

Plays [edit]

• The Imitation Game (1981)

Screenplays [edit]

• Jack Flea's Birthday Celebration (1976)
• The Ploughman's Lunch (1985)
• Sour Sweet (1989)
• The Good Son (1993)

Oratorio [edit]

• or Shall We Die? (1983)

Libretto [edit]

• For You (2008)

Film adaptations [edit]

• Last Day of Summer (1984)
• The Cement Garden (1993)
• The Comfort of Strangers (1990)
• The Innocent (1993)
• Solid Geometry (2002)
• Enduring Love (2004)
• Atonement (2007)
• Sweet Tooth (in development)

References [edit]

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
• 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
• 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

External links [edit]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Ian McEwan

• McEwan Official website
• Official blog
• Guardian Books profile 22 July 2008
• The New Yorker article 23 February 2009
• Interview with McEwan. BBC Video (30 mins)
• Powells.com interview
• Salon.com interview 1998
• "Ian McEwan, The Art of Fiction". Paris Review. Summer 2002 No. 173
• Ian McEwan interview with Charlie Rose, 1 June 2007. (Video, 26 mins)
• Unedited interview with Professor Richard Dawkins
• Audio: Ian McEwan reading from On Chesil Beach at the 2007 Key West Literary Seminar
• Ian McEwan presents "Solar" in Barcelona, Canal-L
• McEwan, Ian (16 December 2011). "Christopher Hitchens: 'the consummate writer, the brilliant friend'". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 October 2012. 

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) Story collections First Love, Last Rites (1975) In Between the Sheets (1978) Children's novels Rose Blanche (1985) The Daydreamer (1994) Screenplays The Ploughman's Lunch (1985) Sour Sweet (1989) The Good Son (1993) Plays The Imitation Game (1981) Opera librettos Or Shall We Die? (1986) For You (2008)