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The Director

By Daniel Kehlmann
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Brief Description
New Statesman Fiction Book of the Year 2025A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year 2025A New York Times Notable Book of 2025A Telegraph Book of the Year 2025A Guardian Translated Book of the Year 2025An Observer Book of the Year 2025'Supple, horrifying and mordantly droll'... Read More
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An artist's life, a pact with the devil, a novel about the dangerous illusions of the silver screen.

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New Statesman Fiction Book of the Year 2025

A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year 2025

A New York Times Notable Book of 2025

A Telegraph Book of the Year 2025

A Guardian Translated Book of the Year 2025

An Observer Book of the Year 2025

'Supple, horrifying and mordantly droll' New York Times

'Nothing short of brilliant' Wall Street Journal

'A subtle, often darkly funny novel about the relationship between art and power' Sunday Times

'A dazzling performance and a real page turner' Salman Rushdie

From 'one of the brightest, most pleasure-giving writers at work today' (Jeffrey Eugenides), a visionary tale inspired by the life of the 20th century film director G.W. Pabst, who left Europe for Hollywood to resist the Nazis and then returned to his homeland with his wife and young son and began making films for the German Reich.

An artist's life, a pact with the devil, a novel about the dangerous illusions of the silver screen.

G.W. Pabst, one of cinema's greatest, perhaps the greatest director of his era: when the Nazis seized power he was filming in France, to escape the horrors of the new Germany he flees to Hollywood. But under the blinding California sun, the world-famous director suddenly looks like a nobody. Not even Greta Garbo, who he made famous, can help him. And thus, almost through no fault of his own, he finds himself back in his homeland of Austria, which is now called Ostmark. The returning family is confronted with the barbaric nature of the regime. But Goebbels, the minister of propaganda in Berlin, wants the film genius, he won't take no for an answer and makes big promises. While Pabst still believes that he will be able to resist these advances, that he will not submit to any dictatorship other than art, he has already taken the first steps into a hopeless entanglement.

Daniel Kehlmann's novel about art and power, beauty and barbarism is a triumph. The Director shows what literature is capable of.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781529435153

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 12 May 2026

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: riverrun

Contributors:

  • Translated by Ross Benjamin

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 352

Collections

Arts & Culture Best Sellers at Book Hero Daniel Kehlmann Fiction Fiction in Translation General Fiction Historical Fiction In Stock Books In-Stock Fiction Books Literary Fiction New Release Fiction

About the Author

Daniel Kehlmann was born in Munich in 1975 and lives in Vienna, Berlin and New York. He has published six novels: Measuring the World, Me & Kaminski, Fame, F, You Should Have Left and Tyll and has won numerous prizes, including the Candide Prize, the Literature Prize of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the Doderer Prize, The Kleist Prize, the WELT Literature Prize, and the Thomas Mann Prize. Measuring the World was translated into more than forty languages and is one of the biggest successes in post-war German literature.

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    An artist's life, a pact with the devil, a novel about the dangerous illusions of the silver screen. G.W. Pabst, one of cinema's greatest, perhaps the greatest director of his era: when the Nazis seized power he was filming in France. To escape the horrors of the new Germany, he flees to Hollywood. But under the blinding California sun, the...
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