Author(s): Adrian Duncan

World fiction

Paul, a young Irish engineer, follows Evelyn to Berlin and begins work on the renovation of a commercial building in Alexanderplatz. Wrestling with a new language, on a site running behind schedule, and with a relationship in flux, he becomes increasingly untethered.

Set against the structural evolution of a sprawling city, this meditation on language, memory, and yearning is underpinned by the site's physical reality. As the narration explores the mind's fragile architecture, he begins to map his own strange geography through a series of notebooks, or "Love notes."

Paul's story will speak to anyone who has known what it is to be in love, or exiled, or simply alone.