Reading guide: The Director by Daniel Kehlmann, translated by Ross Benjamin
Exposing the dangerous illusions of the silver screen, The Director explores the complicated relationships between art and power, beauty and barbarism, cog and conspirator
Daniel Kehlmann
Daniel Kehlmann was born in Munich and lives in Vienna, Berlin and New York
His novels include: Measuring the World, Me & Kaminski, Fame, F, You Should Have Left and Tyll, and he 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.
Tyll, in a translation by Ross Benjamin, was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2020. Measuring the World was translated into more than 40 languages and is one of the biggest successes in post-war German literature. The Director, his 14th novel, also translated into English by Ross Benjamin, was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026.
Author photo © Heike Steinweg
Deeply intelligent, ambitiously structured and unputdownable
— The International Booker Prize 2026 judges on The Director
All nominated books
An artist’s life and a pact with the devil: this is a novel about the dangerous illusions of the silver screen
In a brilliant, riotous tale full of macabre humour, Daniel Kehlmann lifts a jester legend from German folklore and puts him into the Thirty Years War
