Three men walk the pages of W. G. Sebald's first literary work - the painter Mathaeus Grunewald, the botanist George Wilhelm Steller and W. G. Sebald himself. Written as a long poem in three parts, After Nature delves into each of these lives in turn, teasing out the haunting uncertainties of the past and revealing the terrible burden that history places on all of our shoulders. Available for the first time in English, After Nature lays the foundation for Sebald's later works, exploring the themes that would come to dominate his writing.