The Employees A workplace novel of the 22nd century

Translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken

2022 Longlist

The crew of the Six-Thousand Ship consists of those who were born, and those who were made. Those who will die, and those who will not. When the ship takes on a number of strange objects from the planet New Discovery, the crew is perplexed to find itself becoming deeply attached to them, and human and humanoid employees alike start aching for the same things: warmth and intimacy. Loved ones who have passed. Shopping and child-rearing. Our shared, far-away Earth, which now only persists in memory.

Gradually, the crew members come to see their work in a new light, and each employee is compelled to ask themselves whether they can carry on as before – and what it means to be truly living.

Structured as a series of witness statements compiled by a workplace commission, Ravn’s crackling prose is as chilling as it is moving, as exhilarating as it is foreboding. Wracked by all kinds of longing, The Employees probes into what it means to be human, while delivering an overdue critique of a life governed by the logic of productivity.

About the Author/Translator

Olga Ravn is a Danish novelist and poet. Her novel Celestine appeared to critical acclaim in 2015. She is also a literary critic and has written for Politiken and several other Danish publications. Alongside Johanne Lykke Holm, she runs the feminist performance group and writing school Hekseskolen.

Martin Aitken has translated numerous novels from Danish and Norwegian, including works by Karl Ove Knausgaard, Peter Høeg, Ida Jessen, and Kim Leine. He was a finalist at the U.S. National Book Awards 2018 and received the PEN America Translation Prize 2019 for his translation of Hanne Ørstavik’s Love.

Librarian’s Comments

“The Employees A workplace novel of the 22nd century” is a modern and fearless novel which discusses the conventional questions about identity, humanity, work/life balance and modern days achievement culture. But it does so with a voice, that is immediate and fearless and with a restlessness, that makes it impossible to read it as ‘just another comment’ on these important issues. By using the science fiction genre the human relations and our ways of living becomes both alien and familiar at the same time allowing us to examine what it means to be a human and what it means to live. And the strong and beautiful language of the novel makes it stand out as a truly significant novel. Aarhus Bibliotekerne, Denmark