# What We Can Know

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/ian-mcewan/what-we-can-know/9781529961584

![What We Can Know](https://quivercdn.com/covers/vintage-digital/ian-mcewan/what-we-can-know_978-15-2996-158-4-8aa3e2cc.jpg?v=2026-09-24%2003%3A20%3A22)

- Book: [What We Can Know](https://www.bookquiver.com/ian-mcewan/what-we-can-know) ([What We Can Know.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/ian-mcewan/what-we-can-know.md))
- Authors: [Ian McEwan](https://www.bookquiver.com/ian-mcewan)
- Publisher: vintage_digital
- Medium: audio
- Length: 11 h 39 min
- Narrated by: David Rintoul, Rachel Bavidge
- ISBN: 978-15-2996-158-4
- Published: 2025-09-18
- Language: en_GB
- Binding: Audiobook · 11 h 39 min

## Description

In a world submerged by rising seas, can the secrets of the past be discovered? The breathtaking Sunday Times bestseller. 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. ‘Full of wisdom and heart. I loved it’ Elif Shafak ‘A gripping page-turner’ Observer ‘It gave me so much pleasure’ New York 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* © Ian McEwan 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025