Ian McEwan - End of
the World Blues
Lecture Theatre 1, University of East Anglia.
Monday 25 June 2007
This year's RSA Lecture was given by the internationally
acclaimed novelist Ian McEwan, who addressed the power of
apocalyptic visions and myths in the modern world in his hour long
lecture. As world religions become ever more entangled in
global politics, McEwan examined the impact of religious ‘end time
thinking’ on the imagination. It was a rare opportunity
to hear what one of our best writers has to say on a topic of
increasing importance.
McEwan has published two collections of short stories: First
Love, Last Rites (winner of the Somerset Maugham Award) and
In Between the Sheets; and nine novels including The
Cement Garden, The Comfort of Strangers, A Child
in Time (which won the Whitbread Novel of the Year Award),
Black Dogs, The Daydreamer, Enduring
Love, Amsterdam (which won the 1998 Booker Prize),
Atonement and Saturday, which won the 2006
James Tait Black Memorial Prize. His new novella, On Chesil
Beach, was published in April 2007.
With thanks to the
