KEY POINTS:
When Ian McEwan last visited New Zealand in the early 1990s, he made headlines.
McEwan, 59, had stayed overnight in the Coromandel and was driving south when an hour later he realised he had left his briefcase on the side of the road.
The briefcase, McEwan told NZPA in Auckland, contained his laptop with the only copy of a screenplay which was due to start filming.
"I had to reconstitute it from memory ... it was all quite desperate."
The headline the local newspaper ran? "Author Loses Bag". McEwan still has the headline.
"Every few days one of your morning radio shows would call me up and say 'Any news about the bag? You're on live!'
"I'd just be waking up and say, 'No, no news'."
But McEwan is news.
Acclaimed as one of the greatest writers of his generation, McEwan, who has been in New Zealand for the Writers and Readers Week in Wellington, admits he is not that familiar with writers here.
While he knows a number of New Zealand authors, C.K. Stead and Bill Manhire among them, he is more familiar with the work of children's author Margaret Mahy.
His children adored her books, which could be found on their bookshelves at home when they were growing up, he says.
McEwan, an avid reader, prefers non-fiction, histories and biographies, but scoffs at the notion the novel is dead.
"You don't hear that so much these days.
"You used to hear it a lot in the 60s and 70s.
"First it was going to be television that killed it, or movies.
"Briefly people thought cartoon books would see it off," he says.
"It's [the novel] proved remarkably resilient."
Despite the accolades, the awards and the commercial success, McEwan is clearly uncomfortable when confronted with the tag of "greatest writer of his generation".
"I think that judgment is a little too soon.
"I'm very sceptical of that stuff."
McEwan is aware history has left a trail of writers behind, never to be heard of again in commercial or academic circles, regardless of the success or talent the authors had in their day.
"It turns over at quite a speed."
Are you waiting to see how history judges you?
"No, I'm waiting to get on to my next book."
McEwan says he has yet to accomplish everything he wants to.
He is keen to go back to writing screenplays but ultimately what he wants to do is "write very good novels".
It's a seemingly understated goal for a man who has already created an impressive literary legacy.
His first published work was a collection of short stories, First Love, Last Rites in 1975, which won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1976.
In 1998 he won the Booker Prize for Amsterdam and his next novel, Atonement - which was adapted into a successful movie - was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
His most recent novel, On Chesil Beach, was also shortlisted for the 2007 Booker Prize.
McEwan has also written a number of produced screenplays, a stage play and children's fiction.
Then there is the libretto to an opera called For You, about a Don Giovanni type which he has just finished working on.
"It all ends badly," he says.
McEwan writes because he wants to and has never considered giving it up.
He admits he is driven but says while its nice to win the awards, it isn't everything.
"It means more public space to occupy."
It also means more media attention to deal with.
"When Anne Enright won the Booker Prize last year, as soon as she had the prize in her hand, the press just turned on her."
McEwan says he has yet to build up a resistance to the media but has learned the only way to protect himself is not to read what they write.
"But even then you get to know through what other people tell you or you hear."
In late 2006, McEwan defended allegations of plagiarism when it was alleged he had used Lucilla Andrews' autobiography No Time for Romance as the basis of his novel Atonement. McEwan publicly protested his innocence, saying he had acknowledged Andrews' work in the author's note at the end of Atonement.
McEwan jokes about it now, albeit wryly.
When asked what the most common thing people want to know about him McEwan responds quickly "they want to know where I get my ideas from".
"I'm tempted to say I go to a second-hand book shop and find some book that's long out of print and copy them out.
"But you'll meet a journalist with no sense of irony and, before you know it, there will be some headline."
McEwan, while happy to lend his voice to the debate on global warming, says he is loath to be someone the media goes to for a quote on the issue of the day.
Once he knew they were called "ring-around-tarts" McEwan, who has put up with his fair share of dubious questions, knew it wasn't a role for him.
"I actually was asked what my favourite vegetable was, that's how stupid it gets."
McEwan says he can't explain his success.
All writers' creative processes are different, he says.
"There's always the element of luck which is hard to describe.
"There's the issue of talent which is hard to estimate."
Compared with other writers how much talent do you think you have?
"Seven."
McEwan's sense of humour is one of the surprising aspects of his personality, especially for a man who gives very considered answers.
One reason he became an author, he says, was for the autonomy. He first realised it would be his career in the early 1970s.
McEwan's name appeared on the front cover of the now defunct American Review, under authors Philip Roth and Susan Sontag.
"That was so startling.
"For years, I didn't dare, when someone asked me what I did, tell them."
Instead McEwan would say he taught English "or something equally boring so it never produced a follow-up".
"I did, on a plane once, tell someone I was an accountant and he said 'Me too, what area?'
"I thought 'Oh my God!' I told him I didn't want to talk about it as I was tired of work.
"That was a close shave."
Now, every book he writes "is like the first one I've ever written".
"It's detached from everything before."
- NZPA
