The Woman Who Conquered the Sky

Frankfurt am Main, 1889: When the young seamstress Katharina (Käthe) watches a balloonist take to the skies for the first time, she is spellbound. Shortly afterwards, the airship crew trooper Hermann Lattemann literally falls at her feet. She takes her fate into her own hands, starts working for him, they fall in love – and soon it is no longer enough for her to just mend his balloons: she wants to go up herself and feel the freedom of the sky. Together Käthe and Hermann ascend – and parachute back down. But soon after, Hermann dies in an accident and Käthe is left to fend for herself. She does everything she can to achieve fame as an aeronaut and to develop a parachute that could have saved Hermann’s life.

The small-time seamstress becomes the aviation pioneer, inventor and entrepreneur Katharina Paulus. A homage to freedom and self-determination, a brilliant novel about a bold woman who was far ahead of her time.

»In her debut novel, journalist Vanessa Giese gives this pioneer of the skies a voice that is moving.« National Geographic History

»In her novel The Woman Who Conquered the Sky [...] Vanessa Giese paints the portrait of a bold, death-defying woman for whom the world became a different place after she saw it from above. A brilliantly lofty reading pleasure...« Jürgen Christen, BuchMarkt