The Director : Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026 by Daniel Kehlmann

The Director : Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026 by Daniel KehlmannA 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

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.