McEwan's first published work was a collection of short stories, First Love, Last Rites (1975), which won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1976. Career Early career: short stories and 'Ian Macabre' phase, 1975–1987 He was educated at Woolverstone Hall School in Suffolk the University of Sussex, where he received a degree in English literature in 1970 and the University of East Anglia, where he undertook a master's degree in literature (with the option to submit creative writing instead of a critical dissertation). His family returned to England when he was 12 years old. McEwan spent much of his childhood in East Asia (including Singapore), Germany, and north Africa (including Libya), where his father was posted. His father was a working-class Scotsman who had worked his way up through the army to the rank of major. McEwan was born in Aldershot, Hampshire, on 21 June 1948, the son of David McEwan and Rose Lilian Violet ( née Moore). He was awarded the 1999 Shakespeare Prize, and the 2011 Jerusalem Prize. His later novels have included The Children Act, Nutshell, and Machines Like Me. His next novel, Atonement, garnered acclaim and was adapted into an Oscar-winning film featuring Keira Knightley and James McAvoy. He won the Booker Prize with Amsterdam (1998). His novel Enduring Love was adapted into a film of the same name. These were followed by three novels of some success in the 1980s and early 1990s.

His first two novels, The Cement Garden (1978) and The Comfort of Strangers (1981), earned him the nickname 'Ian Macabre'. McEwan began his career writing sparse, Gothic short stories. In 2008, The Times featured him on its list of 'The 50 greatest British writers since 1945' and The Daily Telegraph ranked him number 19 in its list of the '100 most powerful people in British culture'. Ian Russell McEwan, CBE, FRSA, FRSL (born 21 June 1948) is an English novelist and screenwriter.

Espiazione by Ian McEwan