The Child in Time
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  • Published: 25 July 1997
  • ISBN: 9780099755012
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $26.00

The Child in Time

Formats & editions
Paperback
25 Jul 1997
EBook
1 Jul 2010
Audiobook
13 Nov 2014
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Rejacketed in a stunning new series style for 2023, The Child in Time is the extraordinary novel behind the major BBC drama starring Benedict Cumberbatch

Now a major BBC drama starring Benedict Cumberbatch

'Only Ian McEwan could write about loss with such telling honesty' Benedict Cumberbatch

On a routine trip to the supermarket with his daughter one Saturday morning, Stephen Lewis, a well-known writer of children's books, turns his back momentarily. When he looks around again, his child is gone. In a single moment, everything is changed. The kidnapping has a devastating effect on Stephen's life and marriage. Memories and the present become inseparable - as Stephen gets lost in daydreams of the past - and time bends back on itself, dragging Stephen's own childhood back into the present.
  • Published: 25 July 1997
  • ISBN: 9780099755012
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $26.00
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About the author

Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan is the critically acclaimed author of seventeen books. His first published work, a collection of short stories, First Love, Last Rites, won the Somerset Maugham Award. His novels include The Child in Time, which won the 1987 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award; The Cement Garden; Enduring Love; Amsterdam, which won the 1998 Booker Prize; Atonement; Saturday; On Chesil Beach; Solar; Sweet Tooth; The Children Act; Nutshell; and Machines Like Me, which was a number-one bestseller. Atonement, Enduring Love, The Children Act and On Chesil Beach have all been adapted for the big screen.

portrait photo of Ian McEwan

Also by Ian McEwan

Enduring Love
My Purple Scented Novel
Science
Lessons
Atonement
Solar
Sweet Tooth
See all

Praise for The Child in Time

This book describes the panic of losing a child… The engulfing destructive pain is brilliantly explored

Alison Steadman, Week

It is marvellously written, moving, serious, readable... If you want to be appalled, refreshed, exhilarated, enlivened - read it

Sunday Times

The Child in Time is an extraordinary achievement

Guardian

His best work to date

Irish Times

Spooky...a wonderful novel

Observer

His masterpiece

Christopher Hitchens

Artistically, morally, and politically, he excels

The Times

The Child in Time is a dense, atmospheric book as much concerned with philosophical debate as with plot.

Daily Telegraph

This book describes the panic of losing a child… The engulfing destructive pain is brilliantly explored

Alison Steadman, Week

The Child in Time is an extraordinary achievement in which form and content, theory and practice, are so expertly and inseparably interwoven that the novel becomes an advertisement for, or proof of, its own thesis.

Sheila Macleod, Guardian

This book describes the panic of losing a child… The engulfing destructive pain is brilliantly explored

Alison Steadman, Week

It is marvellously written, moving, serious, readable... If you want to be appalled, refreshed, exhilarated, enlivened - read it

Sunday Times

The Child in Time is an extraordinary achievement

Guardian

His best work to date

Irish Times

Spooky...a wonderful novel

Observer

His masterpiece

Christopher Hitchens

Artistically, morally, and politically, he excels

The Times

The Child in Time is a dense, atmospheric book as much concerned with philosophical debate as with plot.

Daily Telegraph