Not many novels have yet been written on the subject of global warming. Most authors probably avoid the risks: too much engagement, too many statistics or too many technical details. Unless that author is Ian McEwan. In his latest novel Solar McEwan rose to the challenge: ‘Climate change is a social construct, with skepticism and alarmism all boiling around together, and I was very interested in this’. Digging in the climate mania brings all kinds of curious types to the surface. There’s the superior idealist, there’s the VIP scientist and of course there’s the gold digging entrepreneur. This makes climate change a perfect subject for satire. In Solar the reader follows Nobel Prize winner Michael Beard, the most idiosyncratic figure of all. The novel was promptly rewarded with the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction.

Hopefully mister McEwan has a large chimney;  other prizes include the Man Booker Prize for Amsterdam and the National Book Critics' Circle Award for Atonement. The latter was made into a very successful movie, as was The Cement Garden, one of his first novels. And now there’s more good news for movie lovers – the novel prior to Solar, the beautiful On Chesil Beach, will be made into a film by Sam Mendes, known for American Beauty and Revolutionary Road.

Ian McEwan will be interviewed during BorderKitchen by Hans Bouman (de Volkskrant). It will be his sole public appearance surrounding the publication of the Dutch edition of Solar.

Please note: the location for this BorderKitchen is Koorenhuis, Prinsegracht 27, The Hague. The evening starts at 20.00hrs.