Torben Mathiassen (b. 1973) is a Danish author and climate advocate known for his cli-fi series Victims of Hothouse Earth, which includes MALI, 3 degrees celsius, and GAIA – The Sky River.
All his books are published in Denmark and are often called thought-provoking by readers and book bloggers alike. MALI and 3 degrees celsius have also been released in English and GAIA – The Sky River is planned to follow later on in 2025.
Drawing on his background as a international export manager and his experience in a Danish–Brazilian family, Mathiassen blends scientific climate realities with human-driven storytelling, exploring themes of migration, inequality, and environmental collapse.
I am committed to Climate Fiction Writers Europe because I feel climate fiction is a great way to make science available in a more tangible sense that the reader comprehend, feel and understand. It can widen the horizon and make them see potential consequences they never even considered before.
The global temperature rise has reached 3 degrees Celsius. Africa is burning, and life has become a daily struggle for survival, with hundreds of millions of people starving across the continent. Somewhere in Central Africa, the tribal girl Bintou must dig deep to find a remarkable inner strength, as both Mother Nature and the Islamist militant group Ansaru seem determined to hold her in an iron grip.
Further north, the orphaned boy Muhammad finds himself in a ghost town in Algeria, with little hope for the future. An impulsive action leads him on a fateful journey that will change his life for-ever.
3 Degrees Celsius is the second book in the “Victims of Hothouse Earth” series. 3 Degrees Celsius focuses on the threat of Islamic extremism during the climate crisis and will be released in English during 2025.
José has spent his entire life on the streets of the ever-bustling megacity São Paulo, where other homeless people, beggars, drug addicts, and muggers make everyday life a constant struggle for survival. As if that weren’t enough, the rain fails to come, and the city is on the verge of running out of clean drinking water.
One day, a fruit plantation manager gets stuck in one of the city’s numerous traffic jams, strikes up a conversation with José, and offers him a job. José sees this as his golden opportunity to escape life as a homeless person, and soon after, he and his friend Thiago set off for the Amazon rainforest, where the plantation is located.
Meanwhile, the city they’ve left behind grows increasingly parched. On the plantation, they meet Alice, a Greenpeace activist, who makes them aware that not everything is as it should be, either on the plantation or in the rainforest.
Climate change has now shown its full power. Northern Europe is freezing, and more than 100 million inhabitants are forced to flee. They are powerless, unwanted, frightened, hungry, and without hope for the future, but according to the UN and current international law, they cannot be classified as refugees. In a remote corner of Denmark, a small village is home to a few families still trying to survive in the new environment, cut off from the outside world.
As the cold worsens, and food and fuel rapidly dwindle, they must leave the village and face the harsh new reality to the south. The survival journey is a shocking and powerful tale of a family struggling to survive tragedy and confront the unknown.
MALI is the first volume in the series Victims of Hothouse Earth. MALI tells the story of the flight from a climate crisis threatening to wipe out large parts of Northern Europe’s population.