Mantle of greatest too heavy to wear
New Zealand Herald - Thursday March 20, 2008
New Zealand Herald - Thursday March 20, 2008
When Ian McEwan last visited New Zealand in the early 1990s, he made headlines.
McEwan, 59, had stayed overnight in the Coromandel and was driving south when an hour later he realised he had left his briefcase on the side of the road.
The briefcase, McEwan told NZPA in Auckland, contained his laptop with the only copy of a screenplay which was due to start filming.
"I had to reconstitute it from memory ... it was all quite desperate."
The headline the local newspaper ran? "Author Loses Bag". McEwan still has the headline.
"Every few days one of your morning radio shows would call me up and say 'Any news about the bag? You're on live!'
"I'd just be waking up and say, 'No, no news'."
McEwan, 59, had stayed overnight in the Coromandel and was driving south when an hour later he realised he had left his briefcase on the side of the road.
The briefcase, McEwan told NZPA in Auckland, contained his laptop with the only copy of a screenplay which was due to start filming.
"I had to reconstitute it from memory ... it was all quite desperate."
The headline the local newspaper ran? "Author Loses Bag". McEwan still has the headline.
"Every few days one of your morning radio shows would call me up and say 'Any news about the bag? You're on live!'
"I'd just be waking up and say, 'No, no news'."
But McEwan is news.
Acclaimed as one of the greatest writers of his generation, McEwan, who has been in New Zealand for the Writers and Readers Week in Wellington, admits he is not that familiar with writers here.
While he knows a number of New Zealand authors, C.K. Stead and Bill Manhire among them, he is more familiar with the work of children's author Margaret Mahy.
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