On Another Planet They Can Save Me
Sophie Collins & Lieke Marsman
Book Description
An electrifying and genre-defying memoir charting Lieke Marsman’s unflinching journey through a terminal cancer diagnosis and a raw search for meaning in a world that offers none
In 2017, poet and novelist Lieke Marsman was diagnosed with a rare type of bone cancer. After being told her illness was incurable, Marsman embarks on an intellectual journey that challenges the limits of the rational, secular worldview she once trusted. As she undergoes radiotherapy, immunotherapy, and multiple surgeries—including the amputation of her arm—she turns to theology, philosophy, mythology, and science in an urgent quest for hope.
Marsman weaves the arguments of Christian thinkers with quantum physics, and the ideas of Ludwig Wittgenstein and William James with Greek mythology. Her research and reflection eventually transforms into an obsession with UFOs—and the manifold implications for us on Earth if life does, in fact, exist somewhere out there. She explores the possibility that meaning—or even salvation—might lie outside the boundaries of what we know. Extraterrestrial life becomes a poignant metaphor for faith itself: “When everything in the here and now turns out to be utterly hopeless, I allow myself to think: On another planet they can save me.”
The result is a poetic, philosophical, and fearless exploration of living with illness and death and nonetheless cultivating hope in the face of the unknown.
Praise For This Book
Chicago Review of Books, A Most Anticipated Book of the Year"Interlacing essays, poems and diary entries, Marsman, the poet laureate of the Netherlands from 2021 to 2023, meditates on her incurable illness—chondrosarcoma, a rare type of bone cancer—with curiosity, lucidity and strangely invigorating wit . . . A generous, full-hearted book." —Kat Lister, The Times (London)
"[A] stunning, profound and often funny meditation on living . . . Resisting a progressive narrative—skipping between years to pause and regress, then pulling us into the immediacy of pain—Marsman is, as ever, lucid, stylish and sage in her irregularity." —Kate Simpson, The Telegraph
"Much of On Another Planet is characterized by the energetic brilliance of Marsman’s thoughts—superbly captured by translator Sophie Collins—and her ability to communicate complex arguments with great subtlety and lightness of touch . . . Deeply wise, moving and profound." —Chris Power, The Observer
“This landmark book is a spiritual shockwave, a lyrical elegy, and a monumental ode to life itself. What a remarkable gift On Another Planet They Can Save Me is for readers.”—Michael Welch, Chicago Review of Books
"A thought-provoking memoir about life, death and the beliefs that help us make sense of these experiences . . . For a memoir that is tied so closely to death, On Another Planet is surprisingly full of light, with reminders of the importance of thinking differently." —Booklist
"Cathartic and often wondrous . . . Witnessing [Marsman's] altered mind grapple with some of humanity’s most sweeping questions is an undeniable pleasure." —Publishers Weekly
“A defiant, moving, and fiercely intelligent exploration of the power of art and imagination in the face of death. By confronting the limits of a rational worldview, Marsman takes the reader into visionary spaces—the very spaces where philosophy, poetry, and humanity intersect to give meaning to life. Marsman deserves to take her place among the great memoirists and essayists of the 20th and 21st centuries, Annie Ernaux and Joan Didion. A beautiful and important work.” —Joanna Pocock, author of Greyhound: A Memoir
"On Another Planet They Can Save Me is a brilliant shock of a book: poetical, philosophical, and so fervently on the side of flux, nuance, imagination, and delight. A call to arms against the destroyer death and death’s angel, despair. Sophie Collins has given us a tender and judicious translation of Lieke Marsman’s literary act of resistance and hope." —Sasha Dugdale, author of The Strongbox
"Writing can be a lonely exercise, and dying even more so. Lieke Marsman has faced both, head-on, using each experience to explore the other. This book is an act of huge generosity, not only in sharing her vulnerability, but also toward herself—modeling how it’s possible to reflect, wallow, and dream in a way that makes life, after all, livable." —Adam Zmith, author of Deep Sniff
