McEwan’s novel begins as a rose-tinted look at our present day through the lens of future historian Tom Metcalfe as he pores over the 21^st Century archives at the University of the South Downs, part of Britain’s remaining archipelagos. Metcalfe marvels at the pinnacles humanity achieved and laments what has been lost. The dystopian undertones creep in though, when he stumbles across a clue leading to a great lost poem. Revelations of a brutal crime emerge and destroy his assumptions about a story he thought he knew.

What We Can Know is a gripping novel exploring what might become of us in an era of war and climate breakdown and imagines a future world where all is not quite lost.

‘A daring, beautiful novel, full of wisdom and heart’ Elif Shafak