Atonement
Atonement is a 2001 British metafiction novel written by Ian McEwan. Set in three time periods, 1935 England, Second World War England and France, and present-day England, it covers an upper-class girl's half-innocent mistake that ruins lives, her adulthood in the shadow of that mistake, and a reflection on the nature of writing. Widely regarded as one of McEwan's best works, it was shortlisted for the 2001 Booker Prize for fiction. In 2010, Time magazine named Atonement in its list of the 100 greatest English-language novels since 1923.
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What you might want to know about Atonement
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
On a hot summer day in 1935 at an English country estate, a precocious thirteen-year-old sees something she does not understand and tells a story that costs her older sister and a young man everything.
Atonement is fictional but draws on real history, particularly the 1940 evacuation of Dunkirk. Ian McEwan researched wartime nursing and military operations extensively. The novel itself is partly about how fiction reshapes truth.
Yes. Joe Wright directed a 2007 film adaptation starring Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, and Saoirse Ronan. The film won the Academy Award for Best Original Score and was nominated for Best Picture.
Atonement won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the WH Smith Literary Award in 2002 and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2001. It is widely considered Ian McEwan's most acclaimed novel.
Atonement was written by Ian McEwan, published in 2001 by QPD.
Atonement is 384 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Atonement takes most readers 6 to 8 hours to finish.
Atonement is a standalone novel by Ian McEwan, not part of a series.
Atonement is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
