Ian McEwan is one of the “ruling triumvirate” of modern British prose (along with Julian Barnes and Martin Amis), winner of the Booker Prize for his novel Amsterdam.

Children's writer Stephen Lewis unexpectedly straight from the supermarket and her three-year-old daughter inexplicably disappears. This loss turns Stephen's whole life upside down and clearly demonstrates to him that his daughter was the only meaning of his life. Stephen's personal drama unfolds against the backdrop of the incessant passage of time, which has started a strange struggle with the main character. Only gradually does Stephen understand that it is not a person who owns his time, but time rules over people - the time of conception and the time of birth, the time of growth and the time of maturity, in a word - time as a mysterious, not personified and omnipotent force that cannot be carried out, but which can be tried overcome only by overcoming yourself.