Join us on October 27 for a book talk with Danish bestselling author Harald Voetmann on his “erudite, grotesque, and absurdist trilogy”– Awake, Sublunar, and Visions and Temptations –moderated by Morten Høi Jensen. Voetmann’s eye-opening, visceral works cover mankind’s inhuman will to conquer nature through the eyes of various mystics, scientists, and innovators across centuries and landscapes in Europe: a bumbling Roman author and naturalist who perishes in Pompeii; pioneering Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe on the verge of a discovery; and a Benedictine monk on his deathbed.

In each novel, the genius of the protagonists clash with the inevitable prospects of their all-too-average demise, with their gazes held elsewhere, be it to the stars or into Hell. Voetmann’s works are a comic delight about a few of history’s greatest minds and the not-so-great human bodies they were housed in. Awake, Sublunar, and Visions and Temptations are all out now through New Directions Publishing.

“Reading Voetmann’s books makes me feel so alive. His voice is like no other, his hold on his material masterful.” — Olga Ravn, author of The Employees