When Canadian journalist Ethan Lou left Toronto in January 2020, the novel coronavirus had barely registered in the minds of North Americans and others in the West. Everything was fine — and then it wasn't.

In his forthcoming book, Field Notes from a Pandemic, part travelogue, part pandemic deep-dive, Lou details witnessing the earliest stages of the COVID-19 crisis when visiting China to see his ailing grandfather — and then unexpectedly travelling to other hot zones around the world, where he repeatedly relives the lockdown he left behind and sees the raw effects of the crisis.

The book also explores the societal impact of the ongoing pandemic and what it says about us and our future.

Field Notes from a Pandemic will be published by McClelland & Stewart, under its Signal imprint. It is set for release in fall 2020.

Lou has been a visiting journalist at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of another forthcoming book, Once a Bitcoin Miner.

Once a Bitcoin Miner is also set for publication in fall 2020.

Lou previously worked for Reuters and has written for the Guardian, the South China Morning Post, the Washington Post, the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, Maclean's and The Walrus.