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Blackwell's names Ian McEwan's What We Can Know as Book of the Year
Blackwell’s has named Ian McEwan’s What We Can Know as its Book of the Year for 2025. What We Can Know won the fiction category, before going on to secure the accolade of overall Book of the Year. Meanwhile, Alice with a Why by Anna James, illustrated by Matthew Land, was named Blackwell’s Children’s Book of the Year and Mother Mary Comes To Me by Arundhati Roy took Blackwell’s Non-Fiction Book of the Year.
What We Can Know is set in the year 2119, where an academic at the University of the South Downs, part of Britain’s remaining island archipelagos, pores over the archives of the year 2014, captivated by the freedoms and possibilities of human life at its zenith. When he stumbles across a clue that may lead to a long-lost poem, a story is revealed of entangled loves and a crime that destroys his assumptions about people he thought he knew intimately well.
McEwan said: "Wonderful to be honoured by marvellous Blackwell’s, by those in daily contact with people who love literary fiction. I’m absolutely delighted."
Zool Verjee, commercial manager, said: "What We Can Know stands out as one of Ian McEwan’s very best. It is many things: masterful, multi-faceted and thought-provoking, a piece of speculative fiction, a literary mystery and a thorough examination of truth, but ultimately it is a captivating read with superlative storytelling."
