Archipelago

For the season finale, we sit down with Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg, an up-and-coming American translator of Scandinavian fiction and non-fiction. After falling in love with Danish literature at school, she swapped Long Island for Copenhagen — and hasn’t looked back. From deciphering Danish idioms to navigating Copenhagen's literary "hothouse," Sherilyn shares her translation journey. You'll hear about learning a language that can sound like "French underwater", translating books that blur po...

Henrik Knudsen is the Elvis Presley superfan who built Memphis Mansion — a brick-for-brick replica of Graceland in the Danish city of Randers. From his 148 pilgrimages to America to the legal showdown with Elvis Presley Enterprises, Henrik's story is a rollercoaster of obsession, risk, and rock history. This episode is a love letter to fandom, a testament to following your wildest ideas, and a reminder that sometimes, the craziest dreams make the best stories. Visit https://www.memphism...

The Human Library is a groundbreaking initiative founded in Copenhagen in 2000, where instead of borrowing books, visitors "borrow" people — volunteers who share their personal stories and experiences to challenge prejudice and foster understanding. In this episode, founder Ronni Abergel shares the origins of the project, its global expansion to over 80 countries, and the careful process of selecting and supporting "books" to ensure a safe, respectful environment for both storytellers and rea...

What if your school week involved colonizing planets, fleeing Nazis, or negotiating with fantasy kingdoms—all while studying history and science? In this episode, we meet Mathias Granum, the founder of EPOS, a groundbreaking Danish boarding school where students learn through live-action role-play (LARP). Granum explains how EPOS transforms traditional subjects into immersive experiences that teach not just academic knowledge, but critical life skills like empathy, public speaking, and confli...

Copenhagen Suborbitals is the world’s only volunteer-run, crowdfunded space program. Based in Copenhagen, the group's 70 volunteers are building a DIY spacecraft to send a person to suborbital space. In this episode, we meet the group's parachute systems lead, Mads Stenfatt, who shares the project’s origins, its shoestring budget (“10% of NASA’s coffee budget”), and the challenges of launching from international waters. He reflects on his journey from skydiver to potential astronaut. The conv...