Ian Mcewan

Joe Wright moved seamlessly from a BAFTA-winning career as a television director into feature films with "Pride & Prejudice" in 2005. His follow-up, like "Pride" starring Keira Knightley, takes on an only slightly less daunting source than Jane Austen: Ian McEwan's enormously popular novel "Atonement." The director doesn't face these challenges alone, however. His creative team has stayed largely intact throughout his career. "We're all kind of jamming together," said Wright.

Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe won the 2007 Man Booker International Prize for fiction Wednesday, beating such celebrated nominees as Philip Roth, Margaret Atwood and Ian McEwan. The $120,000 prize is awarded in London every two years for a body of fiction. Achebe, 76, is best known for his first novel, "Things Fall Apart" (1958), and "Anthills of the Savannah," published more than 30 years later.

Anne Enright won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction on Tuesday with "The Gathering," an evocation of how dark secrets shape one Irish family, topping favorites Ian McEwan and Lloyd Jones in the contest for Britain's most prestigious literary award. Fusing melancholic lyricism with tart wit, Enright's fourth novel defeated McEwan, Jones and three lesser-known finalists to claim the cash award of $102,000 at a black-tie dinner in London.

Robert Caro's "Master of the Senate," winner of the National Book Award, is among the nonfiction finalists announced Monday for the National Book Critics Circle prize. Also nominated was William Langewiesche's controversial "American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center," which accuses firefighters of looting ground zero after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Reversing the usual trend, the critics' picks were better known than November's National Book Awards, which are voted on by writers.