Biography

Son of soldier David McEwan, he spent much of his childhood abroad, stationed in such as outposts as Singapore and Libya.

Recently discovered he had a long-lost older brother, Dave Sharp.

Ranked #19 in the 2008 Telegraph's list "the 100 most powerful people in British culture".

He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of British Empire) in the 2000 Queen's Millennium Honors List for his services to Literature.

Studied creative writing at the University of East Anglia with intructors Malcolm Bradbury and 'Angus Wilson', earning an M.A. in 1971.

I always used to deny this, but I guess what I'm really saying is that I was writing to shock. . . . And I dug deep and dredged up all kinds of vile things which fascinated me at the time. [about his early fiction, which is filled with blood and perversion]

I've yet to meet somebody who said, "Your stories are so revolting I couldn't read them."

Atheists have as much conscience, possibly more, than people with deep religious conviction, and they still have the same problem of how they reconcile themselves to a bad deed in the past. It's a little easier if you've got a god to forgive you.

[on writing the libretto for a new opera ('For You': 2008)] What I've discovered and really confirmed to myself is that opera really likes loud colours, and you need something bold, something savage, unpredictable, passionate. You can't really run a two-hour opera round some muted murmuring.

[on writing 'The Children Act' , about a marriage in crisis] I hung around the courts and spent time with judges. The family court seems neglected in fiction. The judgments I was reading - about the end of love, and the separation of goods and money, and the destinies of children and medical ethics - so many of them are things that fiction routinely deals with.