in English, 1970) and the University of East Anglia (M.A. 1971). At the University of East Anglia he took courses in creative writing taught by Malcolm Bradbury and Angus Wilson. Following the periodical publication of some of his fiction, his first book,
First Love, Last Rites (1975), collected eight stories, originally written as his dissertation at the University of East Anglia, most of them macabre or surreal; his second book was another collection of stories,
In Between the Sheets (1978). Since then he has published six novels, written screenplays for films and television, composed the lyrics for an oratorio, and written a children's book.
McEwan has been a well-regarded and successful writer since the early 1970s. His range has increased; the seriousness and maturity of his writing have grown; and, certainly, the political concerns of his fiction have noticeably sharpened. His First Love, Last Rites won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1976, and two of his novels have been finalists for the Booker Prize: The Comfort of Strangers in 1981 and Black Dogs in 1992.
