Short & Satisfying Book Club: "The Employees" by Olga Ravn

Name: Short & Satisfying Book Club: "The Employees" by Olga Ravn
Start: 2026-05-11T11:00:00-04:00
End: 2026-05-11T12:00:00-04:00
Location: Bookstore1Sarasota

Schedule

Mon May 11 2026 at 11:00 am to 12:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

Bookstore1Sarasota | Sarasota, FL

Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, join our discussion of this clever exploration of what it means to be a person.
About this Event

The Short and Satisfying Book Club, led by Georgia Court, is for those looking for a shorter read that is ripe for discussion. May's selection is The Employees by Olga Ravn (translated by Martin Aitken). Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, The Employees reshuffles a sci-fi voyage into a riotously original existential nightmare. Aboard the interstellar Six Thousand Ship, the human and humanoid crew members complain about their daily tasks in a series of staff reports and memos. When the ship takes on a number of strange objects from the planet New Discovery, the crew becomes deeply attached to them, even as tensions boil toward mutiny, especially among the humanoids. In chilling, crackling, and exhilarating prose, The Employees probes into what makes us human, while delivering a hilariously stinging critique of life governed by the logic of productivity.
We will meet in person at our store location at The Mark, 117 S. Pineapple Ave. The book club is $14.95, which is the cost of/includes a copy of The Employees to be picked up at Bookstore1 any time before our meeting.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Olga Ravn (born 1986) is a Danish novelist and poet. Her debut poetry collection Jeg æder mig selv som lyng: pigesind (I Devour Myself Like Heather) appeared to critical acclaim in 2012. Alongside Johanne Lykke Holm she ran the feminist performance group and writing school Hekseskolen from 2015 to 2019. In collaboration with Danish publisher Gyldendal she edited a selection of Tove Ditlevsen’s texts and books that relaunched Ditlevsen readership worldwide. Her novel The Employees was on the shortlist for the Booker Prize in 2021.

Martin Aitken has translated numerous novels from Danish and Norwegian, including works by Karl Ove Knausgaard, Peter Høeg, Ida Jessen, and Kim Leine.