brings hope that we are more resilient than we think: that we will be here, that there will be trees, that there will be books and readers, and civilization.” Mitchell said he found writing the book “quite liberating because I won’t be around to take the consequences of this being good or bad ... But, I’m sandwiched between Margaret Atwood and no doubt some other brilliant writer. So, it better be good. What a historic fool of epochal proportions I’d look if they opened it in 2114 and it wasn’t any good.” Usually, says Mitchell, who was shortlisted for the Man Booker for his novels number9dream and Cloud Atlas, he “polishes and polishes” his writing. “Actually, I over-polish. But, this was very different – I wrote up to the wire. So, the first two-thirds were polished and the final third I didn’t have time. And, it was a liberation.” Future Library creator, Paterson, whose past works have involved her mapping dead stars and compiling a slide archive of the history of darkness through the ages, asked the writers to tackle “the theme of imagination and time, which they can take in so many directions”. Mitchell revealed only the name of the manuscript, From Me Flows What You Call Time, during a ceremony in the Norwegian woods next to where Paterson’s 1,000 trees are planted. The title is taken from a piece of music by Japanese composer Toru