The child is in his time

Author Name: Ian McEwan

Stephen, a children's book author, is confronted with the abduction of his daughter, Kate, in a flashback while they were grocery shopping together. It happened over the weekend, after he left his wife asleep to rest, and he now doesn't know what to say to her or how to explain the disappearance of their only child. The novel explores the fate of the couple's relationship, and how Stephen begins to recover images of his childhood and its unresolved complexities as his marriage enters the dark zone of abandonment, where each of them decides to wrestle with the grief of loss alone.
Ian McEwan takes us once again, in his signature style that we have become accustomed to in "The Child Act," "Chesil Beach," and "The Nutshell," to the dilemmas of childhood and adulthood, and the fluidity of time that does not recognize that a person passes through separate and clearly defined stages in his life.











We learn with Thiong'o the value of knowledge, which colonialism withheld from the Kenyan people. He tells us about the emergence of formal education and independent, rebellious schools in Kenya. His dream, which he promised his mother he would spare no effort to achieve, was to learn. But how can a child cling to his dream amidst the shadows of World War II and his family crises? This childhood memoir serves as Thiong'o's testimony in defense of his right to dream, at least, despite all the difficulties, and of his mother's significant role in his life, which has led him to become one of Africa's greatest writers worldwide.