Author(s): Harald Voetmann ; Johanne Sorgenfri Ottosen (Translator)

Novel | Translated fiction | Denmark | Historical | Italy | New Directions | Nature

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.

Review: "A flawless and sparkling little monument to human life." -- Information
"A slim novel of ideas, seemingly turning its back on the present, or rather illuminating from within a turn that leads to the very history of European mentality." -- Svenska Dagbladet
"Book of the year." -- Weekendavisen
"Reading and rereading this book remains a rare pleasure." -- Susanna Nied, translator of Inger Christensen
"With 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." -- Sjon
"No one else can describe ancient life with such beauty and humor, while never sparing you from the gross and terrifying pain of being human." -- Naja Marie Aidt
"Reading 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 Ravn
"This strange novella concerns Pliny the Elder and his drive to catalog all of nature. The fluid prose owes much to translator Ottosen. One thematic thread is the contrast between the intellectual effort to rein in nature's extraordinary variety and man's ugly, ignorant cruelty...An interesting work and a good introduction to this unusual writer." -- Kirkus
"Awake is original, piercing, and richly exhilarating. Voetmann's text is a sharp reminder of how powerfully and succinctly well-chosen words can create a world, render experiences, and express thoughts-in short, transport us, to places and in ways we could not have imagined." -- Claire Messud - Harper's

Author Biography: Harald Voetmann is a Danish author, born 1978. He has written novels, short stories, poetry and a monograph on the Roman poet Sulpicia. He studied Latin at the University of Copenhagen and is also a translator of classical Latin literature, notably Petronius and Juvenal. Awake is the first in his series of three historical novels about the urge to understand and conquer Nature. Johanne Sorgenfri Ottosen is a Danish translator born in 1986. She currently lives in Copenhagen where she also works as an illustrator and literary editor.