McEwan was born in 1948 in Aldershot, England. Because his father was career Army, McEwan grew up in Singapore and Libya before returning to England when he was 12.

After working briefly as a garbage collector, he received a B.A. in English from the University of Sussex and an M.A. in creative writing from the Universtiy of East Anglia.

He has written screenplays as well as short stories and novels.

Entertainment Weekly says that McEwan is obsessed "with the randomness of danger--a sense that an orderly world can be suddenly upended by catastrophe--and the resulting issues of guilt and responsibility. . ." (Schilling 36).

In an interview with the Washington Post, McEwan himself says: "'I have a great sense of the randomness of life. . . . Some people want to make me out to be a sort of gothic writer about horrors that intrude. I'm saying I'm reflecting what happens when people's lives are utterly transformed or destroyed by sudden events" (Wagner).

• Amsterdam (1997), about friends who form a suicide pact
  • winner of the Booker Prize
• Atonement (2001), about a false accusation of rape and its aftermath
• Saturday (2005), about a single momentous day in the life of a neurosurgeon

Links

• The Official Ian McEwan Website

Additional Sources

• Schilling, Mary Kaye. "Saturday Night Fever." Entertainment Weekly. 1 April 2005: 36-8.

• Wagner, Thomas. "Novelist McEwan, Throwing Himself Into His Work." The Washington Post. 20 March 2005: D4.