The phenomenal Danish bestseller: a transporting, inspirational story of home, of endings, rebirth and new beginnings
In the darkness of winter on the first day of the year, a woman in Denmark is making a list. She plans to set out and see all of the country's butterfly species in a single summer. She knows nothing about butterflies. She doesn't even know why she wants to see them. She just knows that something is calling her. The pull is irresistible.
The Butterfly Season tells the story of what happened next. We follow Lea Korsgaard as her list takes her to landscapes she never knew existed, shaped by the wind and by the sea. She discovers secret places and meets strangers who help along the way. And she is led into the past: into the lives of...
Lea Korsgaard is an award-winning journalist and author. She is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the digital news platform Zetland, and Chair of the Board of the Danish School of Media and Journalism. The Butterfly Season was first published in Denmark in 2025, where it became a no.1 bestseller.
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Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg is a writer and literary translator based in Copenhagen. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker and the Paris Review, among other places, and her translation of Jonas Eika’s After the Sun from the Danish was longlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley.
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