The Entertainer

Is Amsterdam the novel of yours you would have chosen to win the Booker?

I'd like them all to win the Booker, but I guess you only get one. I was very pleased to win with Amsterdam. My novel Enduring Love, which people made quite a lot of fuss about for not being on the list, is having quite a good run. I don't think that novel really needed the Booker to win readers, whereas Amsterdam, which is a comic, satirical novel, would probably not have found quite such a wide readership as it has done winning the Booker.

How big an effect does winning the Booker have on a novelist? I've noticed that a lot of your earlier books have already been reissued here.

The paperback division of Doubleday Anchor has just acquired Black Dogs, which has been out of print, and The Child in Timewas also acquired by them fairly recently. Winning the Booker always helps the backlist. It has become one of those literary prizes that has taken on a life of its own. There are dozens of literary prizes in Britain, but none has anything like the impact of the Booker. It's fairly hard for British writers to break into American readers' consciousness. It's also difficult for American writers in Britain. Both of us have rather intense literary cultures with their own sets of preoccupations and so on. I've slowly built up a readership in the States, but it's been a long process.

Ian McEwan will read fromAmsterdam at Dutton's Brentwood, on Friday, January 29, at 7 p.m. For info, call (310) 476-6263.