McEwan's 'mesmerising' Lessons signed by Cape for September release

Ian McEwan’s “ambitious and mesmerising” new novel Lessons will be published by Jonathan Cape in September.  

Publishing director Michal Shavit acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, from Peter Straus at RCW. Knopf US and Knopf Canada will also publish simultaneously on 13th September 2022. Lessons is billed as "a powerful meditation on history and humanity told through the prism of one man’s lifetime".  

The blurb reads: “Spanning the past 70 years, from the end of the Second World War to the Suez and Cuban Missile Crises, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the current pandemic and climate change, McEwan’s protagonist, Roland, rides with the tide of history, but more often struggles against it.  

“Haunted by lost opportunities, he seeks solace through every possible means – music, literature, family, friends, sex, politics and love. His journey raises important questions for us all. Can we take full charge of the course of our lives without damage to others? How do global events beyond our control shape our lives and our memories? What does parenthood, that 'double helix of labour and love', teach us about ourselves? And what can we really learn from the traumas of the past?”  

Shavit said: “Not only is this Ian McEwan’s most epic book to date, it is also one of, if not, his finest. A universal story of love, acceptance and sacrifice, longing, desire, and of harm in childhood and its long-term impact. Set against the most amazing backdrop of world-defining events, this is the story of an extraordinary century and an ordinary man grappling with all that it is to be human. A beautiful and moving novel for our times.” 

McEwan is the author of 16 novels and three short story collections. Machines Like Me was published by Cape in 2019 followed by his Brexit-inspired novella The Cockroach.