About this item
Both epic and intimate, the story of one man's life across generations and historical upheavals: a deeply affecting novel about love, loss, ambition, and resolution from the best-selling author of AtonementWhen the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has closed, eleven-year-old Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. Two thousand miles from his mother's protective love, stranded at an unusual boarding school, his vulnerability attracts piano teacher Miss Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade. Now, when his wife vanishes, leaving him alone with his tiny son, Roland is forced to confront the reality of his restless existence. As the radiation from Chernobyl spreads across Europe, he begins a search for answers that looks deep into his family history and will last for the rest of his life.
About the Author
Ian McEwan studied at the University of Sussex, where he received a BA degree in English Literature in 1970 and later received his MA degree in English Literature at the University of East Anglia. McEwan's works have earned him worldwide critical acclaim. He won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1976 for his first collection of short stories ; the Whitbread Novel Award (1987) and the Prix Fémina Etranger (1993) for ; and Germany's Shakespeare Prize in 1999. He has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction numerous times, winning the award for in 1998. His novel received the WH Smith Literary Award (2002) , National Book Critics' Circle Fiction Award (2003) , Los Angeles Times Prize for Fiction (2003) , and the Santiago Prize for the European Novel (2004) . He was awarded a CBE in 2000. In 2006, he won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel and his novel was named Galaxy Book of the Year at the 2008 British Book Awards where McEwan was also named Reader's Digest Author of the Year. McEwan lives in London.
