Novelist Ian McEwan was yesterday back home with his 13-year-old son, following the drama of his former wife going on the run in France with the boy.

The Booker Prize winner said he was ''very relieved'' the ordeal was over, and expressed the hope that he and the teenager, with his new wife and his elder son, would be allowed to continue their life in peace.

He said that the 13-year-old appeared unharmed by the flight, which came just before a French judge confirmed the teenager should return to Oxford with McEwan, 51.

''He's been through something of an ordeal, but he is fine, and quite cheerful. He is looking forward to getting back to school,'' the writer said.

''We are very happy to be home, and relieved. There is a great sense of relief - of course, we have been worried.

''As far as we are concerned, the matter is at an end, and we just want to get on with our lives.

McEwan's ex-wife, Penny Allen, also 51, had absconded with the teenager on Thursday from her remote Brittany farmhouse just hours before the French judge upheld a decision by the English courts that the 13-year-old should return to Britain.

Mr McEwan - whose 1987 novel, The Child in Time, tells of the ordeal of a man whose young child is lost - had an angry confrontation at the farmhouse with Ms Allen's fiance, who insisted that he did not know where the pair were.

In the end, they were found by police while on a bike ride in the town of St Brieuc, only 40 miles from Ms Allen's home. Father and son were reunited on Friday night.

The flight was the culmination of a long custody battle for the couple's two boys, which began when the 13-year marriage broke up in 1995.

Originally, the parents had shared custody, but this arrangement broke down when Ms Allen, a spiritual healer and therapist, moved to north Brittany with the intention of setting up a retreat.

Mr McEwan won a ruling at Oxford County Court earlier this year granting him sole custody of both their children.

Under the terms of the ruling the boys' mother was to be allowed access visits, with the children travelling to her home in Bulat-Pestvivien for holidays.

But Ms Allen announced last week that she would not be sending the children home after their summer holiday.

Although the 15-year-old boy subsequently returned to his father of his own accord, the younger son remained with his mother - sparking the legal fight concluded before the French court in the town of Guingamp on Thursday.

But Ms Allen failed to appear for the hearing and was immediately placed on the official police wanted list.

Mr McEwan also successfully won a High Court injunction banning Ms Allen and her fiance, Stephen Ismay Tremain, from disclosing sensitive information about the court proceedings and the writer's life.

The court order prevents Ms Allen and her fiance from disclosing any information used in documents in the High Court of Justice Family Division, the Oxford County Court and the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Guingamp.

Mr McEwan, 51, first rose to prominence as a short story writer before going on to win prizes with books including Black Dogs. His latest novel, Amsterdam, won the Booker Prize last year.

He married journalist Annalena McAfee in 1997 and divides his time between London and Oxford.