What makes it exceptional, however, is the way it explores the richness and strangeness of being non-human. All the reviews say that the novel is, ultimately, about what it means to be human. A tantalizing puzzle you can never quite solve. The Employees is an alarmingly brilliant work of art.' - Max Porter In concordance with, or perhaps as the result of, the growing sense that the objects exist in communion with the employees, a rift between the human, and therefore mortal, and the humanoid, and therefore capable of being endlessly reuploaded, workers is having deleteriouseven dangerouseffects.

A strange, beautiful, deeply intelligent and provocative investigation into humanity. I was obsessed from the first page to the last. The Employees is not only a disconcertingly quotidian space opera it's also an audacious satire of corporate language and the late-capitalist workplace, and a winningly abstracted investigation into what it means to be human… This clever, endlessly thought-provoking novel catches something of our recursive search for the nature of consciousness a question that answers itself, a voice in the darkness, an object moving through space.' - The Guardian (UK) 'A deeply sensory book, suffused with aroma and alert to tactility. This gorgeous, evocative novel is well worth the effort.' - Publishers Weekly While initially disorienting, the fragmented style builds into an achingly beautiful mosaic of fragile characters managing their longing, pain, and alienation. 'The crew of a spaceship far from Earth struggle with conflicting emotions in this slippery and deeply resonant International Booker shortlisted novel from Ravn. A book that strikes a rare balance between SF philosophy and workaday feeling all while whirling through space.' - Kirkus Reviews (starred review) 'he world Ravn has created is familiar enough in its tropes and human(oid) emotions to infect the reader's imagination.

The Employees by Olga Ravn