Director, The (PB) - B-format

A 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. 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 seize power he is 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 is suddenly 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, and 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. 'A subtle, often darkly funny novel about the relationship between art and power.' - Sunday Times. 'An incomparably accomplished and inventive piece of fiction by one of the most intelligent novelists at work today.' - Jeffrey Eugenides, author of Middlesex.