The Children Act

Ian McEwan is one of the key representatives of contemporary British literature, among the leading prose writers of his generation. A Booker Prize winner, he gained worldwide recognition thanks to the novel “Atonement.”

Judge Fiona May has spent years dealing with cases that have no simple answers: is it permissible to separate conjoined twins if it means the death of one of them; who should be trusted with the children in a divorce within a closed religious community— the mother who wants to give her daughters an education, or the father who is convinced they don’t need to study. Now she faces a new ordeal. Teenager Adam Henry urgently needs a blood transfusion— without it he will die. But both the boy himself and his parents refuse: their faith forbids such a procedure. Fiona has the legal right to go against their will to save a life, yet then she risks depriving Adam of his family’s support and of his familiar world. She has only a few days to decide: after that it will be too late.

Fiona will make a decision she considers the only right one—and it will irreversibly change the fates of both herself and Adam.

This book will appeal to readers deeply moved by “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” by Jonathan Safran Foer, “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” by Mark Haddon, and J. D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye.”