Cosmos

A deeply moving novella that questions what it means to belong to a person, as much as to a place.

It is the height of summer in Copenhagen. Cosmos, a Ghanaian migrant, makes a living as a bottle collector. He spends his nights sleeping under the open sky in city parks, writing WhatsApp messages to his family back in Woe, his hometown, and his days cycling through the streets with The Crows, his newfound friends.

Everything changes when Cosmos meets Elizabeth, a photographer. They fall in love, the city forming a backdrop to their different worlds – and home takes on a new meaning.

As tender as it is keenly observed,Cosmos is a rich and confronting portrait of love and loss in the margins.

Lucia Odoom is an award-winning cultural journalist and author. She is a music critic and culture writer for Denmark’s largest newspaper Politiken, and hosts a weekly podcast on pop culture. In 2020, Lucia Odoom received the Edvard Prize, and the same year she was named Radio Personality of the Year for leading the fight against racism in Denmark. Lucia’s grandfather emigrated from Ghana to Denmark in the 1960s. Cosmos is her debut novel.

Hunter Simpson is a translator of Danish to English. His published translations include Store Kongensgade 23 by Søren Ulrik Thomsen and Iron Lung by Kirstine Reffstrup. He has a master’s degree in Comparative Literature from the University of Copenhagen and has won the Leif and Inger Sjöberg Prize, awarded by the American-Scandinavian Foundation.