Award-winning author Ian McEwan joins ASU's Davies for 'Sci-Fi meets Sci-Fact' lecture

Ian McEwan, a prize winning novelist, screenwriter and author of "Atonement," the celebrated book and film, will be in conversation with Paul Davies for the 2013 Annual Sci-Fi Meets Sci-Fact lecture at 7:30 p.m., March 28, in the Murdoch Lecture Hall, room 101, on the Tempe campus.

The event is free and open to the public, and is sponsored by ASU’s Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science.

Ian McEwan is considered one of the finest and best-known contemporary novelists of our time. His works include "Atonement," "Enduring Love" and the Man Booker Prize-winning "Amsterdam." Distinctive among writers of serious fiction is McEwan’s ability to portray science and scientists in a realistic yet quirky manner. His haunting, compelling themes gently uncover the moral angst of our age, and expose the fallibility of ordinary human beings as they struggle to make sense of their world.

McEwan has been nominated for the Man Booker Prize six times, winning it in 1998. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the Royal Society of the Arts and the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences.

The event will be moderated by Paul Davies, director of the Beyond Center and professor in the Department of Physics in ASU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and will explore the power of fiction in engaging the great issues of our time, ranging from moral confusion to environmental disasters, from the cutting edge of pure science to the shadowy world of spying.

Davies added that the event will offer an unprecedented opportunity for an American audience to gain a window into the extraordinary mind of one of the world’s most creative individuals.

While the event is free and open to the public, seating is on a first come basis. To RSVP for the event, please go to beyond.asu.edu or call (480) 965-3240.