Rey Conquer was translator-in-residence at Holocaust Centre North, where they explored the personal archives of people persecuted by the Nazis. Expecting to find instances of poetic language in the letter writing and other material, instead Conquer began systematically compiling ‘ordinary’ language use – ‘I was pleased to receive your letter’, ‘I’ve not heard from you’, etc – which makes up the entirety of Conversation Time. Its accumulation begins to evoke the gaps and spaces that are indexed by such apparently banal phrasing. The resulting book is searching, suggestive and ultimately moving. Conquer’s debut novel is forthcoming with Fitzcarraldo in 2027.