In the original dustsheet. Red cloth binding with gilt title on the spine.

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Translated from the Danish, Jensen embarks on a journey encompassing Russia, China, Cambodia, Vietnam and Hong Kong. His travels are enriched and this resulting narrative enlightened by the company of local people who allowed him access to their homes, lives and points of view to which most travellers remain ignorant.

Review: When Carsten Jensen set out by train from Denmark on a journey to the East, he expected to find lands of rich history and culture, and people undergoing radical change at the end of the twentieth century. In this illuminating narrative of his travels, there is this and much, much more. Fusing social commentary and history with vibrant descriptions of people and places, Jensen brilliantly evokes the sights, sounds, and smells of these venerable civilizations. He examines the reverberations of the Tiananmen Square massacre in China, always attuned to the restless air of expectancy in the country, but also finds time for remote concerts of ancient Chinese music. He renders the pervasive sense of destruction, despair, and loss in Cambodia with particular sensitivity, wondering at the specter of death that still hovers over the landscape. And it is in Vietnam, with its palpable legacy of colonialism and war, that Jensen ultimately loses himself in an extraordinary love affair. At once compelling and richly informative, I Have Seen the World Begin is an incredible journey.

Born in 1952, Carsten Jensen made his name as a columnist and literary critic for the Copenhagen daily Politiken. During the 1990s he had several major press assignments around the world, including Yugoslavia and several cities in Asia. The author of six collections of essays and two novels, Jensen lives in Copenhagen.