THE BOOK
WHAT WE CAN KNOW BY IAN MCEWAN
In 2119, a scholar living in the archipelagos of a Britain mostly submerged by rising sea levels discovers a clue to a lost poem from a century ago, unveiling an expected story of entangled love and a brutal crime. A quest, a literary thriller, a love story, and a masterpiece that reclaims the present from our sense of looming catastrophe.
IAN MCEWAN
Ian McEwan is the critically acclaimed author of nineteen novels and two short story collections. His first published work, a collection of short stories, First Love, Last Rites, won the Somerset Maugham Award. His novels include The Child in Time, which won the 1987 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award; The Cement Garden; Enduring Love; Amsterdam, which won the 1998 Booker Prize; Atonement; Saturday; On Chesil Beach; Solar; Sweet Tooth; The Children Act; Nutshell; Machines Like Me; and Lessons. Atonement, Enduring Love, The Children Act and On Chesil Beach have all been adapted for the big screen.
Photography © Marc Sethi
The judges said: Both timely and timeless, What We Can Know explores what the world might look like in a century’s time, and how the generations to come might look upon our era, through the clever lens of literary academia.
2025 Fiction judges
