[A]t once a portrait of a city, a shimmering memoir, and a hymn to language and the fragile beauty of human existence.

—Kirstine Reffstrup, author of Iron Lung

Remarkable: a work of erudition and sincerity, profoundly moral yet marked by humility and ambiguity—a book of wisdom born of loss, joy, care, and change.

—Aidan Cottrell-Boyce, author of The End of Nightwork

In this outstanding essay, Denmark’s foremost living poet evokes the drizzle and the cold wind and the anguished ecstasy of his formative Copenhagen years with such sharp, cutting beauty that you want to be nowhere else.

—Mikkel Rosengaard, author of The Invention of Ana