You can also hear the authors:

• www.lyrikline.org: Poetry from all over the world
• www.poetryarchive.org: American Poets
  

British writer Ian McEwan was born in Aldershot, England, and spent much of his childhood in East Asia, Germany, and North Africa. His first published work was a collection of short stories, First Love, Last Rites (1975), which won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1976. Then came his earliest novels, The Cement Garden (1978) and The Comfort of Strangers (1981). The nature of these works caused him to be nicknamed ‘Ian Macabre’. However, it was in the 1990s that McEwan secured his place in the literary hall of fame when his 1997 novel, Enduring Love, about a person with de Clerambault's syndrome (erotomania), was hailed as a masterpiece by many critics. In 1998, he was awarded the Booker Prize for Amsterdam. His next book, Atonement, also received considerable acclaim. In addition, McEwan has written a number of screenplays, a stage play, children's fiction, and an oratorio.