“Gregor Hens combines memoir and reflection, reportage, and theory to create an impressive book on urban phenomena. (…) However, the book’s appeal lies not in the diversity of its themes, but in the effortless, almost somnambulistic way Hens interweaves his personal memories and reflections with reportage and theoretical analysis.” — Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

“This book is a blessing. (…) The Cologne-born writer blends essays, autobiographical recollections, and dreamlike journeys, leading us through his richly illustrated volume into a treasure trove of thrilling stories and histories—a veritable library of ever-fascinating beauty.” — RND

“This is the guiding principle behind his book: drawing on his imagination, his sensibility, and his reading, the author has skillfully woven a tapestry in which every thread touches another and stretches far into the distance.” — Deutschlandradio

“From Berlin to Las Vegas to Shenzhen, this literary scholar walks and reads, venturing into the very heart of the city. Gripping!” — VORmagazin

★ A bestseller by Greg Hinch, University of Cambridge Writer-in-Residence, UC Berkeley PhD, professor of linguistics, and literary translator!
★ UK rights have been sold! The English edition will be published in May 2025, with a full English translation available; the translator’s previous work was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize.
★ Buildings carry their own histories and secrets, as revealed through the urban chroniclers penned by Hinch—from Virginia Woolf and Georges Perec to Rem Koolhaas and Valeria Luiselli. Even libraries, in his view, are veritable cities. Blending memoir, travel writing, and philosophy with photographic essays and literary reflections, this book offers a witty, engaging, thought-provoking, and wide-ranging journey into the heart of the modern city.
★ In this volume, author Greg Hinch travels the globe—reading, walking, and swimming—from Berlin via Las Vegas to Shenzhen, and from Cologne through Santiago de Chile to Paris. He interweaves personal recollections with philosophical musings, frequently drawing on works by some of the most diverse writers, philosophers, and thinkers in world literature. He asks: How do we perceive the city? How does it perceive us? And if its inhabitants were to disappear one day, would the city miss them?
★ Published by the collector’s-level series “Another Library”! Guided by the principle “We only print books we ourselves want to read,” this imprint aspires to become “the most beautiful book series in the world” (as described by Time magazine). Each volume is crafted to an exceptionally high standard, incorporating the distinctive aesthetic vision of Germany’s leading book designers to seamlessly blend knowledge with visual delight.

This is a highly literary, complex, and timely reading experience. It begins where most great stories do: in a library. It is especially recommended to be enjoyed while seated in an armchair, perhaps even during travel.
Cities are like libraries: we walk their streets, picking up a “book” here and there, flipping through its pages to read.
As a reader, a walker, and even a swimmer, the author traverses numerous metropolises around the world—from Berlin via Las Vegas to Shenzhen, from the very margins of society to the monotonous spaces at the heart of tourist-driven city centers. He is intimately familiar with urban spaces, whether in his hometown of Cologne or in Berlin, where city maps correspond directly to his lived environment, and he moves through these “urban landscapes” day and night. He writes about both distant, unfamiliar cities that he has explored as a traveler, cities we hold in our minds as clear images or have firmly embedded in our collective memory, as well as megacities known only by name.
Drawing on the tradition of psychogeography, the author delves into the urban worlds of our planet, engaging with the works of Virginia Woolf, Guy Debord, and Rem Koolhaas. He penetrates deep into the fabric of cities, then rises above them with the eye of a camera lens, until their complexity and beauty lie spread out beneath him—like a picture, like a map—playfully manipulated by astonished children, yet occasionally brought to a halt by disaster. Cities and their alternative conceptions are intricate structures composed of countless aesthetic elements. Gregor Hens’s prose grapples with these questions; it reads like a detailed street map, offering the most surprising connections and references.

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Gregor Hens feels equally at home in cities and in libraries. As night falls, he climbs onto the roof of his Berlin apartment building and gazes at the stars through a telescope. In “City and World,” his gaze sweeps across cities and the Earth itself, searching for points of anchorage within the cosmos. How do we see the city? And how does the city see us? If one day its inhabitants were to vanish, would the city miss them? As a reader, a wanderer, and even a swimmer, Hens has journeyed through major global metropolises—from Berlin to Las Vegas to Shenzhen—moving from the outer fringes to the blind spots at the core of city centers saturated by tourism. Within these urban environments, Hens finds himself entirely at ease: in his birthplace of Cologne, for example, or in Berlin, where the city’s topography aligns with his own life circumstances, and he navigates these “urban landscapes” ceaselessly, day and night. These are the distant yet familiar cities he has come to know as a traveler, or those whose images remain vivid in our collective memory; they may also be vast urban agglomerations known only by name. Grounded in the tradition of psychogeography, Gregor Hens explores our globalized urban worlds, drawing upon the writings of Virginia Woolf, Guy Debord, and Rem Koolhaas. He plunges into the deepest layers of cities, continually ascending from the perspective of a camera lens, until the city unfolds before him in all its complexity and beauty—as if it were a single image, a single map—joyfully played with by curious children, yet sometimes frozen in the face of catastrophe. Through land-art installations such as Michael Heizer’s desert sculptures and Walter De Maria’s extreme drilling projects, Hens discovers cities and their counter-models: multifaceted entities composed of innumerable aesthetic moments. His essays on these cities read like a detailed city map, revealing the most unexpected links and allusions.
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English-language edition synopsis, published May 2025:
In City and World, Gregor Hens explores the cities of the twenty-first century—a space that shapes us even as we shape it—and our place within them. From Berlin to Las Vegas, from Shenzhen to Santiago de Chile, he moves through these vibrant, ever-expanding urban landscapes, reading, walking, swimming, and riding subways and buses, witnessing the peculiar dynamism of city life. Everywhere, new catalysts for understanding emerge. Pushing his young daughter’s stroller, Berlin seems turned upside down. Students’ exercises in getting lost and reorienting themselves challenge our notions of center and periphery. Google Maps transforms into an unexpected gallery, offering novel ways to encounter art and architecture.

Gregor Hens
Gregor Hens is a German novelist and creative nonfiction writer, as well as a literary translator. Born in Cologne in 1965, he earned his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and taught linguistics in the United States for over two decades, most recently at The Ohio State University. He currently teaches urban studies and creative writing at the Free University of Berlin. Since 2013, he has primarily lived in Berlin as a freelance writer and translator. He has translated numerous novels, including works by Leonard Cohen and Will Self.
He was Writer-in-Residence at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and was shortlisted for the Berlin International Literature Prize alongside Ravi Hagen. He has translated works by Will Self and Kurt Vonnegut into German. His memoir Nicotine was published by Fitzcarraldo Editions in 2015.

Jan Kacelja (English Translator)
Jan Kacelja has been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, the Oxford–Weidenfeld Prize, and the Schlegel-Tieck Prize for her translations of German-language literature. Her translations include the memoir Fair (Prototype Publishing), Medium: A Poetic Novel (Prototype Publishing), Faerie Identity: The Faerie Pattern (Rough Trade Books), and The Vacuum Cleaner (Makina Books). She is a co-publisher of Praspar Press, which focuses on publishing Maltese English-language literature and its English translations.