Harald Voetmann – författare

A great mind and a formidable personality, Brahe is also the world’s most illustrious noseless man of his time. Told by Brahe and his assistants—a filthy cast of characters—Sublunar is both novel and almanac. Alongside sexual deviancy, spankings, ruminations on a new nose—flesh, wood, or gold?—Brahe (a choleric and capricious character) and his peculiar helpers (“I would rather watch her globes tonight than icy stars”) take painstainking measurements that will revolutionize astronomy, long before the invention of the telescope. Meanwhile the plague rages in Europe...The second in Voetmann’s triptych of historical novels, Sublunar is as visceral, absurd, and tragic as its predecessor Awake, but with a special nocturnal glow and a lunatic-edged gaze trained on the moon and the stars.

Spurning carnal desire and earthly temptations all his life, the mystic Othlo is now in the care of his brother monks including the odious and semen-filled Wolkbart. Despite the spare walls which surround him, he frolics with Holy Dionysius in the Garden of Head-bearers (each carries his own head for eternity), descends from the island of Heaven, visits a brothel patronized by fallen angels, and witnesses the souls of the once gluttoinous wealthy fighting over scraps of rotting crabmeat in a ditch in Hell.The third and final book in a series about mankind’s desire to conquer nature, Visions and Temptations follows Awake and Sublunar. In each novel, a great if imperfect mind facesis failed by the inevitable demise of the body.

In a shuttered bedroom in ancient Italy, the sleepless Pliny the Elder lies in bed obsessively dictating new chapters of his Natural History to his slave Diocles. Fat, wheezing, imperious, and prone to nosebleeds, Pliny does not believe in spending his evenings in repose: No—to be awake is to be alive. There’s no time to waste if he is to classify every element of the natural world in a single work. By day Pliny the Elder carries out his many civic duties and gives the occasional disastrous public reading. But despite his astonishing ambition to catalog everything from precious metals to the moon, as well as a collection of exotic plants sourced from the farthest reaches of the world, Pliny the Elder still takes immense pleasure in the common rose. After he rushes to an erupting Mount Vesuvius and perishes in the ash, his nephew, Pliny the Younger, becomes custodian of his life’s work. But where Pliny the Elder saw starlight, Pliny the Younger only sees fireflies.In masterfully honed prose, Voetmann brings the formidable Pliny the Elder (and his pompous nephew) to life. Awake is a comic delight about one of history’s great minds and the not-so-great human body it was housed in.

Harald Voetmann''s eye-opening English debut, Awake, is the first book of his erudite and grotesque trilogy about humankind''s inhuman will to conquer natureIn a shuttered bedroom in ancient Italy, the sleepless Pliny the Elder lies in bed obsessively dictating new chapters of his Natural History to his slave Diocles. Wheezing, imperious, and prone to nosebleeds, Pliny doesn''t believe in spending his evenings in repose. No – to be awake is to be alive. There''s no time to waste if he is to classify every element of the natural world in a single work. By day, Pliny the Elder carries out his civic duties and gives the occasional disastrous public reading. But despite his astonishing ambition to catalogue everything from precious metals to the moon, Pliny the Elder still takes pleasure in the common rose. After rushing to an erupting Mount Vesuvius, Pliny perishes in the ash, and his nephew, Pliny the Younger, becomes custodian of his life''s work. But where Pliny the Elder saw starlight, Pliny the Younger only sees fireflies.In masterfully honed prose, Voetmann brings the formidable Pliny the Elder (and his pompous nephew) to life. Awake is a comic delight about one of history''s great minds and the not-so-great human body it was housed in.Praise for AwakeReading Voetmann''s books makes me feel so alive. His voice is like no other, his hold on his material masterful. You will never read anything like Awake – a hardcore, pulsating portrait of a first century Roman weirdo. A wonderful and unpleasant treasure– Olga RavnVivid, earthy, by turns hilarious, gross, and tragic, but always powerfully engaging. Reading and rereading this book remains a rare pleasure– Susanna NiedNo one else can describe ancient life with such beauty and humour, while never sparing you from the gross and terrifying pain of being human– Naja Marie AidtWith a scholar''s knowledge and a poet''s playfulness, Harald Voetmann brings us into the mind and times of its protagonist, Pliny the Elder. Visceral and lyrical, entertaining and provoking, it evokes a dazzling world on the brink of destruction, resounding with our own conflicted age– SjónThis is an interesting book. The writing is beautiful. A fine translation by J.S. Ottosen– Patti SmithHARALD VOETMANN (b. 1978) was nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize and has written novels, short stories, poetry and a monograph on the Roman poet Sulpicia. He also translates classical Latin literature, notably Petronius and Juvenal. Awakeis the first in his series of three historical novels: the second centers on the sixteenth-century Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, and the final book introduces the eleventh-century German mystic Othlo of St. Emmeram.JOHANNE SORGENFRI OTTOSEN is a Danish translator. She currently lives in Copenhagen where she also works as an illustrator and literary editor.