Background information

Ian McEwan and his background

The novel Atonement was written by Ian Russell McEwan, an English novelist, screenwriter, and author of short stories. McEwan attended the University of Sussex and received a degree in English literature in 1970. He went on to earn an MA in creative writing from the University of East Anglia in 1971.

McEwan’s first published work was a collection of short stories, First Love, Last Rites, which won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1976. His first novel, The Cement Garden, was published in 1978 and was followed by The Comfort of Strangers in 1981. Both novels were adapted into films. McEwan has written several other critically acclaimed novels, including Saturday (2005), On Chesil Beach (2007), The Children Act (2014), and Nutshell (2016). He has also written numerous screenplays and adapted several of his own works for film and tele...