Ian McEwan 'uncertain' on Scotland's independence

02.09.14 | Sarah Shaffi - The Bookseller

Ian McEwan has said he is a “pathetic 'don’t know'” when it comes to the Scottish referendum, even though his wife, journalist Annalena McAfee, is in the pro-independence camp.

Speaking at a Guardian reader event for his new book The Children Act (Jonathan Cape) last night (1st September) the author, who has an English mother and a Scottish father, said he was unsure if independence would make a difference to literature. “There aren’t British novelists,” he said “They’re Scottish or Welsh or English. There isn’t a British imagination. We have never united the British imagination.”

McEwan’s new book, out today (2nd September), follows a High Court judge called to decide on whether a hospital should give a teenage boy – a devout Jehovah’s Witness – a blood transfusion, against his wishes and the wishes of his parents.
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