Renowned British literary figure Ian McEwan. Photo / Getty Images
Best-selling author Ian McEwan has been heckled in front of hundreds of fans at a literary festival - by his own ex-wife.
Penny Allen started berating the author, from whom she split in 1995, from the back of the audience as he discussed his latest book, 'The Children Act', a fictional treatment of a collapsing marriage, at the Cheltenham Literary Festival.
Mr McEwan, 56, did not respond directly to his Ms Allen's tirade although he was heard to mutter that the person making the noise 'it's my ex-wife'.
According to The Times, Ms Allen asked: 'I have a question. Why don't you tell people about the injunctions and superinjunctions you have taken out on me.'
Under the terms of their split, Mr McEwan was granted custody of their pair's children and she has been prevented from talking in public about the settlement.
Ms Allen previously told The Daily Mail: 'It is certainly a bit rich that Mr McEwan champions free speech but I am stifled and have no such freedom to defend myself, which has had a catastrophic effect on my ability to work as a writer and a journalist. We don't give interviews but he does.'
She said that she had been a major influence on much of his earlier work. When their relationship ended, Ms Allen believes Mr McEwan used their shared experience as an inspiration for his book 'Black Dogs'.
Mr McEwan was telling the audience that his most recent book was about a female judge who must decide whether she should order a teenage Jehovah Witness boy to receive live-saving medical treatment despite his reluctance and the opposition of his family.
As a sub-plot, Mr McEwan wrote that his character's marriage was collapsing, prompting Ms Allen to say that he was writing about their failed relationship.
Mr McEwan told the audience: 'I gave her a disintegrating marriage to give her turmoil in her private life to run alongside [issues in her professional life].'
Following the interruption, Ms Allen and a friend were escorted from the building.
In an interview to publicise the book, Mr McEwan even suggest his own personal experience of the courts helped him with the novel.
He says: 'Well, I've been through it myself. I've been in it, I'm familiar with the Family Division. We had years and years of it. It floated from the Crown Court to the High Court in the end.'
She said: 'It seems iniquitous that while I am bound by law to be silent, he is free to promote his new book in publicity interviews by referring to it [the divorce].'
Ms Allen said it was Mr McEwan's legal team who moved the case from Oxford to the High Court.
The break up between him and his ex-wife Ms Allen was incredibly acrimonious.
In one hearing in 1999, Ms Allen and her partner Steve Tremain arrived at court wearing gags over their mouths in protest against an injunction banning them from talking about the proceedings.
She even believes the title of the book is an attempt to criticise her as the gagging order secured by Mr McEwan was granted under the terms of the Children's Act.
Now she is planning to write a journal of her divorce experience based on her struggle with Mr McEwan.
She decided to write the book four years ago when she found a box which contained much of the rulings and correspondence of her bitter divorce.
Ms Allen was married once before she met Mr McEwan is currently in a relationship with Steve Tremaine, living in a 15th century cottage in Brittany, France.
He latter married Annalena McAfee, a journalist who interviewed him for the Financial Times.
In a 1991 interview Mr McEwan described his ex-wife as ' the single most important influence on my work . . . I suppose I was lucky I married a woman who fascinated me and I remain fascinated by her.
'She is a very strong presence in my life, emotionally, sexually -and this emerges in my work.'
During the divorce, a court document revealed that a judge described her as 'a purveyor of half-truths, twisted information, inaccuracies and false inferences'.
Ms Allen said the comments were made after she complained to the Lord Chancellor over the handling of the case.
'I was never given a chance to reply or to explain anything,' she says.
Today mother and father are both close to their adult sons -though the parents are never together when they seem them - and one has just produced McEwan's first grandchild.
- Daily Mail