“Nobel Laureates in Portraits”—for this comprehensive project German photographer Peter Badge has been traveling the world since 2000. More than 400 encounters have now provided him with incomparable insight into the worlds of those who “have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind”—as Alfred Nobel described it in his last will and testament. This book is, however, much more than the mere “making of” of a long-term photographic undertaking.

Ingenious Encounters. World Tour to Nobel Laureates reflects on the personalities, achievements and lives of the laureates from a unique perspective, both unusual and fascinating. Badge’s impressive accounts of his experiences have been compiled and penned by Sandra Zarrinbal to create a captivating book that defies categorization—as authentic as a diary, as informative as a work of popular science, as thrilling as an adventure documentary, as touching as a bildungsroman, as amusing as a celebrity biography, and as poetic as Nobel himself preferred to approach the world.