Ian McEwan, born in 1948 in Aldershot in England, was the son of a Scottish army major and grew up amongst other places in Singapore, Libya and Germany. He studied English Literature at the University of Sussex in Brighton and the University of East Anglia in Norwich. Today, Ian McEwan is a highly renowned contemporary author and has won numerous literary prizes, including the Man Booker Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Twelve of his stories have been turned into films, including Atonement (2007), which was nominated for seven Oscars. Ian McEwan was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2000. In 2011 he was awarded the Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society. He has also been the recipient of prestigious awards in the German-speaking world, such as the Alfred Toepfer Foundation Shakespeare Prize for his life’s work (1999) and the German Book Prize (2003). Over twenty of his works have been published in German by Diogenes Verlag.
