Excerpt:
Ian McEwan has insisted that criticising Islam is not racist and blamed left-leaning thinkers for "closing down the debate".
The Booker Prize winner said those who claimed judging Muslims was "de facto" racism were playing a "poisonous argument".
McEwan, 61, the best-selling author of novels including Amsterdam, Atonement and Saturday, thought many in the left wrongly took this position because they had an anti-Americanism shared with Islamists.