Imperium: A Fiction of the South Seas

Winner of the Wilhelm Raabe Literature Prize

One of Publishers Weekly's Ten Best Books of 2015

A Huffington Post Best Fiction Book of the Year

In 1902, a radical vegetarian and nudist from Nuremberg named August Engelhardt set sail for what was then called the Bismarck Archipelago. His destination: the island of Kabakon. His goal: to establish a colony based on worship of the sun and coconuts. His malnourished body was found on the beach on Kabakon in 1919; he was forty-three years old.

In his first novel to be translated into English, internationally bestselling author Christian Kracht uses the outlandish details of Engelhardt's life to craft a fable about the allure of extremism and its fundamental foolishness. "A Melvillean masterpiece of the South Seas" (Jonathan Sturgeon, Flavorwire), Imperium is funny, bizarre, shocking, and poignant---sometimes all on the same page.

Christian Kracht is a Swiss novelist, whose books have been translated into 27 languages. His previous novels include Faserland, 1979, and I Will Be Here in Sunshine and in Shadow. Imperium was the recipient of the 2012 Wilhelm Raabe literature prize.