Madeleine Thien talks to Daniel Hahn

The Booker-shortlisted author (Do Not Say We Have Nothing) shares her profound and adventurous new novel. The Book of Records questions how collective political moments can determine an individual’s future, and revels in the infinite joys of intellectual endeavour.

Lina and her ailing father have had to flee their home, and have taken refuge in a mysterious building known as the Sea, that dominates a staging-post for migrating people. With only a few possessions, including three volumes from the Great Voyagers encyclopaedia series, they find some rooms and wait for the rest of their family.

While they wait, Lina befriends her unusual neighbours – who resemble the radical 17th-century Dutch scholar Baruch Spinoza, the philosopher Hannah Arendt and the Chinese poet Du Fu – while her father struggles with the concept of leaving this supposed temporary home. As his health worsens, he finally recounts how he and Lina came to reside in the Sea, and what his betrayals cost their family and others.