Wiener Vorlesung in englischer Sprache.

Ian McEwan is one of the world’s greatest living literary figures. His award-winning novels explore the fragile intersections of morality, memory, and imagination. His latest book, What We Can Know, has been published to outstanding reviews.

Described by one critic as a “science-fiction novel about the present,” it returns to some of McEwan’s familiar themes of climate change, human agency, and how histories are interpreted and distorted. In conversation with Misha Glenny, McEwan will survey his own work over the past four decades while also looking forward to whether humanity can control its future in the face of unprecedented challenges.

Ian McEwan is the author of numerous internationally bestselling works. He received the Booker Prize for Amsterdam and has been shortlisted for the award several times. His novels have been translated into more than 30 languages, and several have been adapted for film.

Misha Glenny served as rector of the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM Vienna) from 2022 to 2026 before returning to the BBC to present the radio program In Our Time. A former BBC Central Europe Correspondent who covered the revolutions in Eastern Europe and the wars in the former Yugoslavia, he is a sought-after keynote speaker on the geopolitics of cybersecurity and organized crime.