Kaliane Bradley talks to Francis Spufford

Kaliane Bradley, a British-Cambodian writer and editor, talks to the author of Cahokia Jazz about her first novel, set in the near future. A disaffected civil servant is offered a lucrative job in a mysterious new government ministry gathering ‘expats’ from across history to test the limits of time-travel. Her role is to work as a ‘bridge’: living with, assisting and monitoring the expat known as ‘1847’ – a man supposed to have died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed expedition to the Arctic. As the true shape of the project that brought them together begins to emerge, both have to confront their past choices.