The Canadian writer Madeleine Thien is working on her next novel, the follow-up to her prizewinning 2016 book Do Not Say We Have Nothing. But she’s finding that it’s difficult to find the internal peace and privacy to begin again, especially after having being catapulted into the public eye after the previous novel’s success.

As the narrative and characters shift and evolve in the author’s mind, there’s much painstaking research and many rewrites to be done. How can Madeleine blend the aspects of past and present which are pre-occupying her at the moment? And will she ever be satisfied enough with the novel to allow it to see the light of day?

Paul Kobrak follows her over several months as she creates different versions of the first draft of the new novel. It’s a process which moves from Berlin in Germany (and a coffee shop which is central to Madeleine’s writing process) to Brooklyn USA (where she teaches Creative Writing to University students) and finally to Portugal's capital city Lisbon, where she hopes to complete it.