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Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan

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Ian McEwan, born in Aldershot, England, is a critically acclaimed author and winner of the Booker Prize in 1998

McEwan is one of only five authors to have been nominated for the Booker Prize six times. He won the prize in 1998 with Amsterdam, was shortlisted for The Comfort of Strangers (1981), Black Dogs (1992), Atonement (2001) and On Chesil Beach (2007), and was longlisted for Saturday (2005). He won the Whitbread Novel of the Year Award for The Child in Time, in 1987, and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Enduring Love, in 1999. His other novels include The Cement Garden, The Innocent, Solar, Sweet Tooth, The Children Act, Nutshell, Machines Like Me and What We Can Know. He was also shortlisted, for his entire body of work, for The Man Booker International Prize 2005 and 2007. 

Many of his books have been adapted for the big screen, including Atonement, which won a BAFTA for Best Film and a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture.

In 2023 he became a Companion of Honour after being recognised in the King’s first official birthday honours.

Read more on Ian McEwan

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

Reading guide: On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

Set in the borderlands of English history immediately before the liberation of the Swinging Sixties, Ian McEwan’s short novel reveals how a life can be irrevocably altered by a moment’s twist of fate

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

An extract from On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan’s devastating novel, about the ways in which the entire course of a life can be changed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2007 

Amsterdam
Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Winner of The Booker Prize 1998

Published by
Jonathan Cape
A fragile friendship descends into hatred and revenge, in Ian McEwan’s darkly humorous Booker Prize 1998-winning novel

Other nominated books

Black Dogs
Ian McEwan’s brooding and occasionally sinister novel hints at how personal relationships can be beset by demons unleashed in wider human conflict
Atonement
A young girl’s imagination runs riot with far-reaching and devastating consequences, in Ian McEwan’s masterpiece of metafiction
Saturday
A masterful Ian McEwan explores the incredible fragility of existence, as he charts one hugely eventful day in the life of a middle-aged neurosurgeon
On Chesil Beach
Ian McEwan’s devastating novel about ways in which the entire course of a life can be changed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken
The Comfort of Strangers
An English couple on holiday encounter an unsettling stranger in Ian McEwan’s chilling psychological thriller about love, violence and obsession