The Director: A Novel
May 2025 · Sold by Simon and Schuster
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SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE • A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF THE YEAR • AN NYPL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK • A LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT BOOK CLUB PICK
“Nothing short of brilliant.” —The Wall Street Journal
From “a surpassingly gifted storyteller” (The New York Times), a visionary novel inspired by the life of film director G.W. Pabst, who fled to Hollywood to resist the Nazis only to return to his homeland to create propaganda films for the German Reich.
An artist’s life, a pact with the devil, and the dangerous illusions of the silver screen.
G.W. Pabst, one of cinema’s greatest directors of the 20th century, was filming in France when the Nazis seized power. To escape the horrors of the new and unrecognizable Germany, he fled to Hollywood. But now, under the blinding California sun, the world-famous director suddenly looks like a nobody. Not even Greta Garbo, the Hollywood actress whom he made famous, can help him.
When he receives word that his elderly mother is ill, he finds himself back in his homeland of Austria, which is now called Ostmark. Pabst, his wife, and his young son are suddenly confronted with the barbaric nature of the regime. So, when Joseph Goebbels—the minister of propaganda in Berlin—sees the potential for using the European film icon for his directorial genius and makes big promises to Pabst and his family, Pabst must consider Goebbels’s thinly veiled order. 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.
Kehlmann’s latest oeuvre explores the complicated relationships and distinctions between art and power, beauty and barbarism, cog and conspirator.
“Nothing short of brilliant.” —The Wall Street Journal
From “a surpassingly gifted storyteller” (The New York Times), a visionary novel inspired by the life of film director G.W. Pabst, who fled to Hollywood to resist the Nazis only to return to his homeland to create propaganda films for the German Reich.
An artist’s life, a pact with the devil, and the dangerous illusions of the silver screen.
G.W. Pabst, one of cinema’s greatest directors of the 20th century, was filming in France when the Nazis seized power. To escape the horrors of the new and unrecognizable Germany, he fled to Hollywood. But now, under the blinding California sun, the world-famous director suddenly looks like a nobody. Not even Greta Garbo, the Hollywood actress whom he made famous, can help him.
When he receives word that his elderly mother is ill, he finds himself back in his homeland of Austria, which is now called Ostmark. Pabst, his wife, and his young son are suddenly confronted with the barbaric nature of the regime. So, when Joseph Goebbels—the minister of propaganda in Berlin—sees the potential for using the European film icon for his directorial genius and makes big promises to Pabst and his family, Pabst must consider Goebbels’s thinly veiled order. 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.
Kehlmann’s latest oeuvre explores the complicated relationships and distinctions between art and power, beauty and barbarism, cog and conspirator.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE • A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF THE YEAR • AN NYPL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK • A LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT BOOK CLUB PICK
“Nothing short of brilliant.” —The Wall Street Journal
From “a surpassingly gifted storyte...
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Ratings and reviews
3 reviews
Jack Derrida
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June 13, 2025
Gripping, funny, profound, thought-provoking. This is a wonderful book. A fictionalized portrait of German film-maker GW Pabst and his moral struggles under the Nazis. It's the story about people caught in the vortex of history, about art versus corruption and authoritarianism, and if that sounds very relevant today... It is! It's not heavy-going or an arduous read, it's as light as the camerawork described in the book, funny at times, deeply moving at times.
About the author
Daniel Kehlmann was born in Munich in 1975. His novels and plays have won numerous prizes, including the Candide Prize, the Doderer Prize, the Kleist Prize, the Welt Literature Prize, and the Thomas Mann Prize. His novel Tyll was shortlisted for the 2020 International Booker Prize, and Measuring the World has been translated into more than forty languages and is one of the biggest successes in post-war German literature. He currently lives in Berlin and New York.
Ross Benjamin is the translator of numerous works of German-language literature, including Franz Kafka’s Diaries, Clemens J. Setz’s Indigo, Joseph Roth’s Job, Kevin Vennemann’s Close to Jedenew, Friedrich Hölderlin’s Hyperion, and Daniel Kehlmann’s The Director, Tyll, and You Should Have Left. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Benjamin was also awarded the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize for his rendering of Michael Maar’s Speak, Nabokov. His translation of Tyll was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, and The Director was selected as a New York Times Top 10 Book of the Year and was also shortlisted for the International Booker Prize.
Ross Benjamin is the translator of numerous works of German-language literature, including Franz Kafka’s Diaries, Clemens J. Setz’s Indigo, Joseph Roth’s Job, Kevin Vennemann’s Close to Jedenew, Friedrich Hölderlin’s Hyperion, and Daniel Kehlmann’s The Director, Tyll, and You Should Have Left. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Benjamin was also awarded the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize for his rendering of Michael Maar’s Speak, Nabokov. His translation of Tyll was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, and The Director was selected as a New York Times Top 10 Book of the Year and was also shortlisted for the International Booker Prize.
Daniel Kehlmann was born in Munich in 1975. His novels and plays have won numerous prizes, including the Candide Prize, the Doderer Prize, the Kleist Prize, the Welt Literature Prize, and the Thomas Mann Prize. His novel Tyll was shortlisted for the 2020 International Booker Prize, and Measuring ...
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