Lingua Franca

Long-listed for The Guardian's Not the Booker prize 2016.

There's a problem with Barrow, but it can be fixed. You just need to change the name to Birdseye. Birdseye-in-Furness....

Miles Platting is pulled from the ruins of a shipwreck into a world in which no one will speak to him.

The founder of Lingua Franca - a naming-rights agency committed to renaming every UK town after a corporate sponsor - Miles recounts the story of his quest for linguistic supremacy to anyone who'll listen. Confined to his hospital bed in a deathly quiet ward, Miles seeks to find his colleagues and reunite with his true love.

But in doing so, Miles must confront his deepest held convictions and consider, what's in a name? in a world where the spoken word has been replaced with silence.