TENSE EXERCISES

a) Ian McEwan is a British writer who, according to many critics, has written some of the best novels of recent years.

b) Born in 1948 he spent much of his childhood abroad as his father was an army officer.

c) He studied English literature and creative writing at the universities of Sussex and East Anglia.

d) He wrote a number of successful collections of short stories and novels.

e) His novel The Child in Time won the Whitbread Novel Award in 1987.

f) His later novels including Amsterdam, Atonement and Saturday was very successful.

g) Amsterdam received the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1998.

h) Atonement and Saturday also won literary prizes.

i) Some writers accused him of stealing details in Atonement from the work of another author, Lucilla Andrews.

k) However, he pointed out the acknowledgment made to Lucilla Andrews in an author's note in the book.

l) During this controversy the American author Thomas L'ynchon wrote a defence of McEwan in a British newspaper.