Ian McEwan

Ian Russell McEwan who was born on 21 June 1948, is a British novelist. McEwan´s first published fiction gained both outrage and praise (cf Childs, p1). He published his first novel, The Cement Garden, in the year 1978. The novels of Ian McEwan are listed on the bestseller lists and he is an author who is well regarded by critics. There are two reasons for this: first of all he is seen as a stylist and second, as a serious thinker “about the function and capacities of narrative fiction.” (Head, p.2). His success as a novelist may be due to the fact that he uses topics in his novels which people can identify with and which are familiar to them, such as: “politics, and the promotion of vested interests; male violence and the problem of gender relations; science and the limits of rationality; nature and ecology; love and innocence; and the quest for an ethical world-view.” (Head, p. 2). McEwan is not only a novelist who understands to attract people’s attention to his novels by discussing issues that are contemporary, but he also takes an important part in the twentieth-century literary history by taking a central role in a new wave of British novelists (cf. Head, p 2). The writing of this new wave of British novelists “began to emerge in the Thatcher era” (Head, p. 2). Along with writers like Martin Amis, Graham Swift, and Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McEwan “fashioned an ethical vision for the ‘post-consensus’ period” (Head, p. 2). All of the writers mentioned above were “grappling with the moral problems that present themselves in Britain in the 1980s and 1990s” (Head, p.2). It was a period which was characterized by the growth of self – interest, the expansion of corporate power as well as the collapse of the Welfare State (cf. Head, p. 2). During this period, the writers “sought to forge (or resuscitate) the moral impulse in a period that was not conductive to such venture.” (Head, p. 2). Besides writing novels in the era of Margaret Thatcher, who was premier from 1979 to 1990. Ian McEwan experienced new characteristics of culture which defined the postmodern world. One example of McEwan´s getting in touch with the new culture of postmodernism is that in 1972, he experienced the counter – culture by following the hippy trail to Afghanistan (cf. Head, p. 4). Ian McEwan himself summarizes his experience as follows: “[…] boredom and smoking hash in huge quantities without any real point” (Head, p. 4). This statement shows that McEwan experienced some characteristics of new subcultures like, for example, the so called Teddy Boys or Mods who liked Rock’n’Roll and became famous for riots which shows that these subcultures introduce a new way of life which is not necessarily positive. Thus, the novelist Ian McEwan played an important role in shaping the postmodern world because through his experiences he was able to know what the people wanted to read about in this period, which granted him success as a novelist.

Sources:- Childs, Peter. The Fiction of Ian McEwan. A reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. - Head, Dominic. Ian McEwan. Contemporary Novelists. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007.