What We Can Know
Will be published approx. on 18. June 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
320 pages
978-1-5299-5920-8 (ISBN)
Description
In a world submerged by rising seas, can the secrets of the past be discovered? The breathtaking Sunday Times bestseller.
'Full of wisdom and heart. I loved it' Elif Shafak
'A gripping page-turner' Observer
'It gave me so much pleasure' New York Times
2014: A great poem is read aloud and never heard again. For generations, people speculate about its message.
2119: With the UK's lowlands submerged by rising seas, those who survive are haunted by all that has been lost.
Tom Metcalfe, a university scholar, pores over the archives of the early twenty-first century. When he stumbles across a clue that may lead to the lost poem, he reveals a story of entangled love and a brutal crime that challenges everything he thought he knew about the past.
'What We Can Know may well have created a new genre' Sunday Times
'Brilliantly plotted... In What We Can Know, the past is an irresistible riddle' Washington Post
'Propulsive...entertaining and enjoyable' Financial Times
'A dazzling novel' Independent
'Haunting, playful and ultimately hopeful... A wonderful book' Kaliane Bradley
'A poignant love letter to the vanishing past' Guardian
*A BOOK OF THE YEAR for the Sunday Times, Guardian, New York Times, New Statesman, Spectator, New Yorker, i Paper and Barack Obama*
'Full of wisdom and heart. I loved it' Elif Shafak
'A gripping page-turner' Observer
'It gave me so much pleasure' New York Times
2014: A great poem is read aloud and never heard again. For generations, people speculate about its message.
2119: With the UK's lowlands submerged by rising seas, those who survive are haunted by all that has been lost.
Tom Metcalfe, a university scholar, pores over the archives of the early twenty-first century. When he stumbles across a clue that may lead to the lost poem, he reveals a story of entangled love and a brutal crime that challenges everything he thought he knew about the past.
'What We Can Know may well have created a new genre' Sunday Times
'Brilliantly plotted... In What We Can Know, the past is an irresistible riddle' Washington Post
'Propulsive...entertaining and enjoyable' Financial Times
'A dazzling novel' Independent
'Haunting, playful and ultimately hopeful... A wonderful book' Kaliane Bradley
'A poignant love letter to the vanishing past' Guardian
*A BOOK OF THE YEAR for the Sunday Times, Guardian, New York Times, New Statesman, Spectator, New Yorker, i Paper and Barack Obama*
Reviews / Votes
What We Can Know may well have created a new genre: the postapocalyptic campus novel. Imagine AS Byatt's Possession crossed with Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Dark academia meets the big ideas novel, all conveyed in McEwan's trim, beautifully ordered sentences -- Johanna Thomas-Corr * Sunday Times * An ambitious and an accomplished work of fiction, it's...rewarding and thought-provoking * Financial Times * What We Can Know is a daring, beautiful novel, full of wisdom and heart -- Elif Shafak [A] dazzling novel... [What We Can Know] has an eloquent fury about the way our misguided present is allowing nature to shrivel by "slow roasting" * Independent * McEwan's arrestingly relevant new novel... [is] a fiercely involving biblio-mystery deepened by musings on knowledge and understanding, time and memory * Mail on Sunday * A gripping page-turner about marital duty and guilt * Observer * An enjoyable work... McEwan excels at exploiting narrative details for dramatic effect * Literary Review * What We Can Know is an astonishing consideration of how the tendrils of the past leak into the present... It's terrifyingly believable... McEwan cleverly structures the book to reveal his inner workings, while the thoughts he raises around loss...rumble spectacularly throughout * UK Press Syndication * What We Can Know delivers one of McEwan's finest comic set pieces... [and] can be read as an optimist's manifesto, a rage against our consensus of decline... [and] a cautionary tale of unchecked nostalgia * Times Literary Supplement * An elegy from our future, haunting, playful and ultimately hopeful, What We Can Know is a wonderful book that interrogates the limits of knowledge and interpretation, and bold depiction of our decadent, dying era -- Kaliane BradleyMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 196 mm
Width: 128 mm
Thickness: 24 mm
Weight
260 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5299-5920-8 (9781529959208)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
09/2025
Vintage Digital
€8.99
Available for download
Person
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.