(courtesy of Jeff Malkin)
Novelist McEwan barred from US
Audrey Gillan
Thursday April 1, 2004
The Guardian
One of Laura Bush's favourite British authors has been refused entry to the US, a day before he was due to lecture to an audience of 2,500 people.
Ian McEwan was stopped by immigration officials as he left Vancouver airport, in Canada, for an engagement in Seattle.
The man who was last year invited to Downing Street by Cherie Blair to meet American's first lady - who said she keeps a McEwan novel by her bedside - found himself detained for four hours before being turned back.
McEwan, who recently won America's National Book Award for his novel Atonement, was travelling to the US as a guest of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Officials there told him he did not need a visa. But the immigration officer felt differently.
Yesterday the British consul in Vancouver, James Rawlinson, scrambled to help clear McEwan's visit. The matter was referred to the US consul and the department of home land security in Washington DC, while the author stayed at a hotel.
He is also due to lecture in Portland, Oregon, as well as appearing as a visiting writer at Caltech. "I have been doing this type of thing for 30 years and I have never been refused entry," he said.
"I am talking about my work, and who can talk about my work better than me? I am not coming to the US to practise as a novelist, I am coming to talk about being a novelist."
Mr Rawlinson said it was not clear whether McEwan's "little difficulty" was a result of a misunderstanding.
Marjorie Gooding of Caltech said the problem was a result of the "ambiguity in the interpretation of visa requirements". She said: "We get one read of the law and a port of entry guy gets another read."
McEwan got stuck in the middle. Last night he said: "The irony is that beside me, when I was being questioned, was a lady who had a suitcase stuffed full of banknotes. I had to be very careful not to lose my temper."
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