Ian McEwan

Available for over a year

Chris Power talks to the novelist Ian Mc Ewan. Over the course of his 18 novels from The Cement Garden and Black Dogs to Amsterdam and Atonement, McEwan has always been a chronicler of modern Britain, however his new novel Lessons takes on a much larger canvas. Lessons begins at a boarding school in the late 1950s when a female piano teacher pinches the leg of an 11-year-old boy, Roland, and follows that with a kiss. These abusive acts send ripples through Roland's life over the next 60 years. The novel studies how Roland’s life is shaped both by personal ordeals and the currents of history; from World War 2, to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Chernobyl disaster and the coronavirus pandemic. Lessons is the longest novel McEwan’s ever written, but it's also his most autobiographical, he talks to Chris about the difficult truths within his own family's history and the rewards of weaving fact and fiction. Book List – Sunday 11 September and Thursday 15 September Lessons: A Novel by Ian McEwan Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan Nutshell by Ian McEwan Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan The Children Act by Ian McEwan On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan Solar by Ian McEwan Saturday by Ian McEwan Atonement by Ian McEwan Amsterdam by Ian McEwan Enduring Love by Ian McEwan The Day Dreamer by Ian McEwan Black Dogs by Ian McEwan The Innocent by Ian McEwan The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan