Ian McEwan: 'I'm a total news junkie, even as it gives me enormous pain
British novellist and screenwriter Ian McEwan has been listed by The Times as amongst "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945" and he's received numerous awards and accolades for his work, including being shortlisted for the Man Booker several times. His novel Atonement 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). Atonement was also made into an Oscar-winning film. In 2006, Ian McEwan won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel Saturday and his novel On Chesil Beach 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. Ian McEwan was awarded a CBE in 2000. His latest book Machines Like Me examines the concept of synthetic humans - and what makes us human.