The Child in Time

Ian McEwan is one of the “ruling triumvirate” of contemporary British prose (along with Julian Barnes and Martin Amis), and a Booker Prize winner for the novel “Amsterdam.”

For a children’s writer, Stephen Lewis, his three-year-old daughter disappears—unexpectedly and inexplicably—from right out of a supermarket.

This loss overturns Stephen’s entire life. It shows him, clearly, that his daughter was the only purpose of his life. Stephen’s personal drama unfolds against the backdrop of an unceasing flow of time, which has started a strange struggle with the protagonist.

Only gradually does Stephen realize that it isn’t people who control their time—time controls people: time of conception and time of birth, time of growth and time of coming of age—in short, time as a mysterious, unpersonified, all-powerful force that you can’t direct, but can only try to overcome by overcoming yourself.