David Mitchell and the Novel You’ll Never Read

Mitchell is Second Author to Collaborate on Future Library Project

Author David Mitchell has penned a new novel, but before you get too excited, this book won’t be read for a hundred years. Mitchell has collaborated on the Future Library project, which saw the planting of 1,000 trees in Oslo’s Nordmarka forest.

The plan is that every year for 100 years an author will deliver a manuscript, which will only be read in 2114 when the trees are cut down and used for the paper on which the books will be published. The forest, which will stand for 100 years will then be used to publish all 100 books.

Mitchell’s work is called From Me Flows What You Call Time and he is the second author to submit a work to the project. Last year Margaret Atwood started the ball rolling when she handed over the manuscript for Scribbler Moon, a book that also won’t be printed until 2114.

It’s unlikely that any of us adult readers are ever going to get to read any of these books. We will just have to stand by and watch every year as our favourite authors add to the Future Library, tormenting ourselves with books we can never read. While I think it’s a wonderful project, the idea of all these books I will never read is almost too much to bear!

Here’s Margaret Atwood talking at the start of the project last year.