Ian McDonald

Ian McDonald is a British science fiction novelist, living in Belfast. His themes include nanotechnology, postcyberpunk settings, and the impact of rapid social and technological change on non-Western societies. McDonald was born in 1960, in Manchester, to a Scottish father and Irish mother, but moved to Belfast when he was five, and has lived there ever since. He therefore lived through the whole of the 'Troubles' , and his sensibility has been permanently shaped by coming to understand Northern Ireland as a post-colonial society imposed on an older culture. He became a fan of SF from... childhood TV, began writing when he was 9, sold his first story to a local Belfast magazine when he was 22, and in 1987 became a full-time writer. He has also worked in TV consultancy within Northern Ireland, contributing scripts to the Northern Irish Sesame Workshop production Sesame Tree. McDonald is known for his work set in developing nations. His 1990s 'Chaga Saga' is particularly notable for its analysis of the AIDS crisis in Africa.
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