In Praise of the Earth

Byung-Chul Han is the author of more than twenty books including The Burnout Society, Saving Beauty and The Spirit of Hope.

• PrefaceWinterreiseWinter GardenTime of the OtherBack to the EarthRomanticizing the WorldWinter-flowering CherryWinter Aconites and Witch HazelWhite ForsythiaAnemonesCamelliasWillow CatkinsAutumn CrocusesPlantain Lilies (Hosta)On HappinessBeautiful NamesVictoria AmazonicaColchicum AutumnaleDiary of a Gardener List of IllustrationsNotes

Finalist for the 2025 Big Other Book Award for Nonfiction"This is a book of exquisite beauty filled with the scents and colours of flowers and quiet changing of seasons in the author's Berlin garden. But more than that, it is a book of profound wisdom, a calm and deeply welcome antidote to the harshness of our troubled world."Esther Woolfson, author of Corvus"Steeped in German philosophy and high culture, Han's reflections... will yield for patient readers subtle and lovely insights... This poetic volume will nourish gardeners and nature lovers."Publishers Weekly"Han turns so completely toward wholeness that his writing seems an alien arrival: the work of a being that loves wholly, uselessly, openly... It would be good and wise to enter that other time with Han's voice and try to live there for a little while." Front Porch Republic"Han's book, written in his characteristically crystalline prose, and sparklingly translated from the German by Daniel Steuer, calls august witnesses (Martin Heidegger, Rainer Maria Rilke, Friedrich Nietzsche, Bertolt Brecht and many others), to testify to the truths of what he discovered in the garden."Charles Foster, Times Literary Supplement"In Praise of the Earth is a philosophical song, which finds in the most delicate blossom a resounding call for care. 'Flowering is rapture,' Han writes and reading this book too, is a rapturous experience."The Conversation