Ian McEwan | What We Can Know
Sun 23 Nov 2025 | 12:00pm - 1:00pm
A new novel from one of our greatest writers is always cause for celebration! Ian McEwan’s latest, What We Can Know, is no exception.
Moving between the present day and a future reshaped by climate catastrophe, McEwan imagines a Britain fragmented into island archipelagos after the seas have risen. In this drowned landscape, academic Tom Metcalfe pores over the archives of a lost world, captivated by the richness of human life before the flood. When he uncovers a clue to a vanished poem — once read aloud in 2014 and never heard again — he is drawn into a story of entangled loves, secrets and betrayal that challenges everything he thought he understood.
With his trademark brilliance, McEwan applauds the extraordinary tenacity of the human spirit in the face of devastation, showing us that even in a climate-ravaged future, all is not lost. Expect a riveting conversation exploring love, loss, survival, the life of the artist and the power of literature to illuminate the darkest of times.
In conversation with Alex Clark
Venue: TTP Stage (Cambridge Union)
Duration: 1 hour
Tickets available soon.
Author Biography
Ian McEwan is the critically acclaimed author of eighteen 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, a number-one bestseller. Atonement, Enduring Love, The Children Act and On Chesil Beach have all been adapted for the big screen.
Chair Biography
Alex Clark is a broadcaster and journalist, who writes for many publications including the Guardian, the Observer, and the Times Literary Supplement. She is a co-host on the Graham Norton Book Club for Audible and hosts the TLS podcast. She is a professional chairperson and appears all over the UK at Cheltenham, Hay and the Southbank Centre. Alex is a festival honorary patron.
