"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.

Peter Badge was born in 1974 and studied art history in Berlin. Choosing portraiture as his primary focus, Badge has concentrated on famous artist personalities, scientists and politicians, creating photographic series including ¿Men on the Moon,¿ ¿Elviswhö and ¿Philanthropists.¿ In 2000 he embarked on an ongoing photographic project on Nobel laureates, commissioned by the Foundation Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings and a consortium of international institutions. Badge is Honorary Consul of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste in Germany. Sandra Zarrinbal, born in 1968 in Münster, holds a doctorate of law and is a freelance author, poet and ghostwriter in Berlin. The historical biography Der letzte Zeuge (Pendo/Piper 2008), compiled and chronicled by her, was a non-fiction bestseller.