Sublunar — Harald Voetmann

Translated from the Danish by Johanne Sorgenfri Ottosen

Winner of the Danish Critics’ Prize for Literature

In the 16th century, on the island of Hven, the pioneering Danish astronomer, Tycho Brahe, is undertaking an elaborate study of the night sky

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 take painstaking measure- ments that will revolutionise 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.