Ian mcewan

Ian McEwan

Is a novelist whose have earned him worldwide critical acclaim. His earlier work used precise, elegant prose to write about dark, sinisterthemes such as incest and infanticide.

But his later work is broader, often beginning with realistic descriptions of a calm, everyday life which is suddenlydisrupted.

In 1976 his first collection of short stories, First Love, Last Rites (1975), won the Somerset Maugham Award. A second volume of stories, In Betweenthe Sheets, appeared in 1978. These stories - claustrophobic tales of childhood, deviant sexuality and disjointed family life - were remarkable for theirformal experimentation and controlled narrative voice. His first novel, The Cement Garden (1978), is the story of four orphaned children living alone after thedeath of both parents. To avoid being taken into care, they bury their mother in cement in the basement and attempt to carry on as normal a life as possible, andan incestuous relationship develops between the two eldest children as they seek to emulate their parents roles. It was followed by The Comfort of Strangers(1981), set in Venice, a tale of fantasy, violence and obsession. The book was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction.

Atonement (2001), shortlisted forthe Booker Prize for Fiction and the Whitbread Novel Award and winner of the W. H. Smith Literary Award, begins in 1935 and tells the story of Briony, a younggirl and aspiring writer, and the consequences of the discovery she makes about Robbie, a young man destined to play a part in the Dunkirk evacuations.