Kavanagh longs for some kind of event as he wiles away his time patrolling the wall, even if this event would call for him to have to fight for his life. Takes place in a strange, broken and yet recognisable world.

John Lanchester has written five novels, The Debt to Pleasure, Mr Phillips, Fragrant Harbour, Capital and The Wall, and three works of non-fiction: Family Romance, a memoir; Whoops!: Why everyone owes everyone and no one can pay, about the global financial crisis; and How to Speak Money, a primer in popular economics. His books have won the Hawthornden Prize, the Whitbread First Novel Prize, the E. M. Forster Award, and the Premi Llibreter, been longlisted for the Booker Prize, and been translated into twenty-five languages. He is a contributing editor to the London Review of Books and a regular contributor to the New Yorker.