“The Anglican service today was more familiar to me from movies. Like one of the great Shakespeare speeches, the graveside oration, studded in fragments in the memory, was a succession of brilliant phrases, book titles, dying cadences that breathed life, pure alertness, along the spine.”

British novelist and screenwriter

Ian McEwan is a British novelist and screenwriter. He has been a major figure in contemporary British fiction, and in 2008 The Times placed him at number 35 on its list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. He is also known beyond the page for screenwriting, and The Daily Telegraph ranked him number 19 among the 100 most powerful people in British culture. His work has made him a prominent name in modern literary culture.