Ian McEwan announces surprise Brexit satire, The Cockroach
Out this month, the Kafkaesque novella sees a man wake up as prime minister and is described by the author as a ‘therapeutic response’ to Brexit turmoil
In Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa awoke to discover that he had been transformed into a monstrous beetle. Now, in Ian McEwan’s unexpected new project, Jim Sams wakes and finds he must endure a worse fate: he has become the British prime minister.
Announced on Thursday, and to be published in just two weeks time on 27 September, The Cockroach is McEwan’s 16th work of fiction and his second to be published this year, after the novel Machines Like Me. Following the transformation, Sams – who was “ignored or loathed” in his previous life – finds himself with new powers and a new mission: to carry out the will of the people.
