The Director
Longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026
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- 10,99 €
Description de l’éditeur
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 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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Tyll author Kehlmann offers a clear-eyed and propulsive chronicle of Austrian filmmaker G.W. Pabst (1885–1967), whose achievements included launching the careers of Greta Garbo and Louise Brooks before he reluctantly collaborated with the Nazis. As an expat in 1930s Hollywood, Pabst enjoys a reputation as a gifted artist and is eager to continue working. His latest idea is a parable for the rise of fascism in Europe, but his pitch doesn't sell, and he's reduced to making a superficial romance. He returns to his native Austria with his wife and their son after learning that his mother's health has declined. But the homecoming is an unpleasant one, as the Nazis have just taken over. Pressure on Pabst escalates after Germany invades Poland and he's summoned to Berlin, where he's coerced into making propaganda films. Though he survives WWII, his reputation is stained by his complicity with the Nazis. Kehlmann is especially effective at illustrating the ease with which people accept the realities of living in a violent police state. As one of Pabst's colleagues puts it to him, "You have to be extremely careful not to say anything wrong, even more so since the beginning of the war. But once you get used to it and know the rules, you feel almost free." It's a searing look at the mechanics of complicity.
