After 83 plays, Alan Ayckbourn publishes his first novel at 80

The Divide, which is set in a dystopian future England, has been adapted from a six-hour, two-part play

At 80, after writing 83 plays and earning seven Evening Standard theatre awards, two Oliviers, one Tony and a knighthood, Alan Ayckbourn will publish his debut novel this month.

Set in a dystopian England a century from now, the British playwright and director imagines a world in which a plague has ravaged the population and men and women are strictly segregated. The story is told through Soween and her older brother Elihu, who grow up under a brutal dictatorship. Railing against the tyranny of a mendacious leader known as the Preacher, Elihu threatens to ignite a bloody revolution.

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