Ian McEwan’s next novel is science fiction ‘without the science’

Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter for all the latest entertainment news and reviews Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy The next novel by Ian McEwan will be a post-apocalyptic story, set in part in the 22nd century and centered on a scholar's immersion into a poem written during happier times. McEwan, the Booker Prize-winning British author, is calling “What We Can Know” a work of science fiction “without the science." “I’ve written a novel about a quest, a crime, revenge, fame, a tangled love affair, mental illness, love of nature and poetry, and how, through all natural and self-inflicted catastrophes, we have the knack of surviving," McEwan said in a statement released Friday through Alfred A. Knopf, which announced the book will be published Sept. 16. My ambition in this novel was to let the past, present and future address each other across the barriers of time.” open image in gallery British author Ian McEwan The 76-year-old McEwan has previously imagined disasters and disruptions — and how we respond — whether the threat of climate change in “Solar,” a radiation cloud in “Lessons” or artificial intelligence in “Machines Like Me.” Knopf publisher and editor-in-chief Jordan Pavlin said in a statement that “What We Can Know” is an exploration of the “limits of our knowledge," whether of other people or the arc of the past.