The Director: Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026
by Daniel Kehlmann (Author) Format: Paperback
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars (2,801)
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SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE 2026
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
'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.
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Smartly entertaining...a marvelous performance - not only supple, horrifying and mordantly droll, but fluidly translated and absolutely convincing - The New York Times
The Director has all the darkness, shapeshifting ambiguity and glittering unease of a modern Grimms' fairytale: it is Kehlmann's best work yet. - Guardian
Daniel Kehlmann, the finest German writer of his generation, takes on the life of the eminent film director G. W. Pabst to weave a tragicomic historical fantasia that stretches from Hollywood to Nazi Germany, from Garbo to Goebbels, to show how even a great artist can make, and be unmade by, moral compromises with evil. A dazzling performance and a real page turner. - Salman Rushdie
Daniel Kehlmann is shockingly brilliant, a writer of extraordinary range and grace. At times absurdist, at times horrifyingly realist, The Director asks where the moral duty of the artist resides, and how the narcissism of the artistic project can bleed into complicity.
The Director is engrossing and luminous, an epic act of historical imagination and an intimate parable about moral compromise and the seductions of art. After Tyll, I wasn't sure how Kehlmann could possibly top himself. He has. This book is a marvel. - Ayad Akhtar
A wonderful book about complicity and the complicity of art. It's also funny, and brilliant.
An incomparably accomplished and inventive piece of fiction by one of the most intelligent novelists at work today. - Jeffrey Eugenides, author of Middlesex
Clear-eyed and propulsive . . . a searing look at the mechanics of complicity - Publishers Weekly
Review
Smartly entertaining...a marvelous performance - not only supple, horrifying and mordantly droll, but fluidly translated and absolutely convincing - The New York Times
The Director has all the darkness, shapeshifting ambiguity and glittering unease of a modern Grimms' fairytale: it is Kehlmann's best work yet. - Guardian
Daniel Kehlmann, the finest German writer of his generation, takes on the life of the eminent film director G. W. Pabst to weave a tragicomic historical fantasia that stretches from Hollywood to Nazi Germany, from Garbo to Goebbels, to show how even a great artist can make, and be unmade by, moral compromises with evil. A dazzling performance and a real page turner. - Salman Rushdie
Daniel Kehlmann is shockingly brilliant, a writer of extraordinary range and grace. At times absurdist, at times horrifyingly realist, The Director asks where the moral duty of the artist resides, and how the narcissism of the artistic project can bleed into complicity.
The Director is engrossing and luminous, an epic act of historical imagination and an intimate parable about moral compromise and the seductions of art. After Tyll, I wasn't sure how Kehlmann could possibly top himself. He has. This book is a marvel. - Ayad Akhtar
A wonderful book about complicity and the complicity of art. It's also funny, and brilliant.
An incomparably accomplished and inventive piece of fiction by one of the most intelligent novelists at work today. - Jeffrey Eugenides, author of Middlesex
Clear-eyed and propulsive . . . a searing look at the mechanics of complicity - Publishers Weekly
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The Director: Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026
The Director: Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026
Product details
Publisher : riverrun
Publication date : 28 April 2026
Edition : 1st
Language : English
Print length : 352 pages
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From Australia
Marg
4.0 out of 5 stars Slow start, great book highly recommend.
Reviewed in Australia on 12 July 2026
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Slow to start while it sets the scene. But this part is all necessary and the rest is great. Great characters & so many interesting things to think about ( and discuss, if you’re in a book club). I only gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because of the slow start.
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Mark
4.0 out of 5 stars exciting, emotional and absorbing
Reviewed in Australia on 25 August 2026
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The joy and despair of movie-making, war, creativity, and desire. Tight writing. Fascinating world. Breathlessly realized scenes. Characters with dimension and depth. Highly recommended.
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David Black
5.0 out of 5 stars Expressionism and the German Misere
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 February 2026
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When the Nazis seized power in 1933 and took over the German film industry, its best directors - Fritz Lang, FW Murnau, Robert Wiene and fled into exile.
As described, fictionally, in Daniel Kehlmann’s novel, The Director, the move didn'tt go well. The studio bosses insist that he direct a no-hoper, entitled A Modern Hero (1934), which duly bombs, all but destroying his marketability in Tinsel Town. Pabst moves next to France, where he directs another flop.
At the outbreak of war in 1939, Pabst finds himself stuck with his family back in the Third Reich. His presence is noticed by propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, who calls him in, and reminds him that he was (or is) 'Red Pabst'.
'But you are sorry?'
'Pardon me?'
'You have engaged in communist propaganda, you were an enemy of the German people, you have made common cause with other enemies of the people, and with Jews. Actually. All that is unforgivable...
To gain a little time, Pabst leaned forward...
'I was never a communist. With all due respect. I have also not engaged in -'
'You misjudge the situation. I'm not arguing. If you had just the slightest idea of what could be in store for you, you wouldn't even try. It is what it is, and I say what it is, and all you say here is: I'm sorry. And you say: now I know better! And: I have recognised my mistakes. And I want to do my part in building a new Germany. Well?'
Pabst capitulates. Goebbels immediately gives him a screenplay to direct: Komödianten, a historical drama.
'Caraline Neuber , Pabst! The inventor of German theatre. Pabst! Lessing's patroness, Pabst! The script is by two Weltbühne writers, left-wing riff-raff, people like you who should be in a concentration camp, but who have recognised the truth and seen the light. Entirely apolitical material, Pabst. So it shall remain too. It is meant to be idealistic. Metaphysical. Noble'.
But the Nazis’ 'historical' dramas are political, the heroes of the past are celebrated as nationalist precursors of Hitlerism and the Fuhrer-Prinzip.
In 1943, Pabst makes Paracelsus. Set in Basel in 1527, Paracelsus, the official physician of the city, provokes the ire and jealousy of the Scholastic medical establishment, who want rid of him. In the Nazi hagiographies published in 1941 for his 400th anniversary, Paracelsus is portrayed as a pioneer in Blood-and Soil' German science. Nietzsche saw him as anticipating Goethe. The philosopher Alexandre Koyré asked:
'Who was he, this brilliant vagabond? A profound scholar who, in his battle against Aristotelian physics and classical medicine, laid the foundations of modern experimental medicine? A precursor of nineteenth-century rational science? An inspired, erudite physician, or an uneducated charlatan, vendor of superstitious quack medicine, astrologer, magician, inventor of gold, etc.? One of the greatest intellects of the Renaissance, or an old-fashioned heir to the mysticism of the Middle Ages, a ‘Goth’? A pantheistic cabalist, follower of a vague stoical Neoplatonism and natural magic? Or, on the contrary, is he ‘the healer,’ that is to say, the man who by concerning himself with suffering mankind discovered and formulated a new conception of life, of the universe, of man, and of God?’
Such were the questions, but as far as the Nazis were concerned, Paracelsus, as Eric Rentschler says in The Films of G.W. Pabst : an extraterritorial cinema,
'fully embodies the “Fuhrerprinzip.” He joins a noble line of self-effacing heroes, who, from Frederick II to Bismarck, devoted themselves to the glory of the German people while sacrificing their private life... Paracelsus also experiences the ingratitude and misunderstanding of his contemporaries... in the scholar’s desire to use German rather than Latin, both in his scientific and philosophical writings as well as in his teaching.'
Kehlmann pulls a master stroke in having PG Wodehouse attend the premier of Paracelsus in Salzburg in 1943. The real-life Wodehouse was interned as a POW when he found himself in Germany when war broke out. The Nazis allowed him to stay, at his own expense, in a posh Berlin hotel, with the extra price of having to record some talks for Berlin radio. When re-broadcast to Britain, in between Lord Haw Haw's rants, he was labelled as a a traitor – even though his talks weren't political.
For the Paracelsus premier, Wodehouse is provided with evening dress and is accompanied by his propaganda ministry handler, who reminds him of his POW status, and directs him for a celebrity photo-shoot:
'In front of the cameras please'. I bridled. There had been no suggestion of cameras. 'It's not a suggestion.'
Wodehouse meets Pabst, who is friendly, but can hardly speak English. Pabst's wife, Trude, does speak English and she knows Pabst is heading for trouble. She invites Woodhouse to arrange for an escape of all three of them to Switzerland.
Wodehouse meets Guido Merwetz:
'Once a feared critic. Now one of our subtlest describers.. describes beginning, middle and end.. what the actors look like.. He's not allowed to write that an actor is good, for that would be criticism too.. and imply that that an actor could be bad. But how would that be possible? The films are produced by the ministry, so how could they be anything but excellent?'
Wodehouse meets Leni Riefenstahl, who hates Pabst and is comically humourless. 'She had evil eyes and bared frightfully white teeth. Her skin seemed to be cast from Bakelite'. He meets the Nazi Anglophobe Alfred Karrasch, whose novel is being adopted for Pabst's next film.
When it comes to Paracelsus the movie Wodehouse is spellbound. When Paracelsus quarantines the city against the plague, the acrobat Fliegenbein, known for his 'winged feet', steals into the city and performs in a tavern.
'The people in the tavern were engrossed in the dance. They tapped their feet, nodded their heads and shrugged along to the music... the first few stood up and mimicked his steps – but then more and more of them joined in, and then none could resist, no one could sit, everyone in the rook was dancing. There was nothing joyful about it, neither mirth nor freedom forward and back and to the left and to the right, they jumped, their bodies twitching and writhing, seemingly unleashed, yet in perfect unison and with desperate faces. No one deviated in the slightest. Paracelsus, entered, a large sword in his hand. He watched them dance with a diagnostic eye, then he gave a nighty shout. All at once the dance came to an end.'
Some see allusion in this to Nazi madness. Paracelsus's temporary victory over Death is tempered by a 'death march’ of flagellants into the city, which may or may not have reflected the doom of Nazi hopes after Stalingrad. A peasant rebel song heralds the arrival of the dying Von Hutten who, being a real noble rebel, seems quite un-Hitlerish.
Kehlmann's PG Wodehouse is then no more historically inaccurate than Pabst's Paracelsus, which was, after all produced by Goebbels. Pabst did try to atone for his wartime career by going on to make The Last Ten Days, which showed the evil and depravity, of Hitler, Goebbels and co in the bunker.
In sum Kehlmann’s The Director, is meditation on the art of complicity and complicity in art.
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The Shopper
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing read
Reviewed in Germany on 28 May 2026
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If you’re into German films and into expressionist films then you should read this
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Jürgen Stil
4.0 out of 5 stars Superb character depictions.
Reviewed in Canada on 9 April 2026
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Superb character depictions. Also, the startling description of how the director in the story might prepare two actors for an exchange of intimate dialogue. For example: one actor/lover might be told to see his lover as his mother, while the other is told to accept his attentions as if he is a secret policeman who might otherwise harm her family.
Near the end of the novel, the author unnecessarily uses a crudely obvious plot device which cheapens the tale.
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Ken Casler
5.0 out of 5 stars Cinema lovers will enjoy The Director
Reviewed in France on 24 December 2025
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Great storytelling! Nicely translated. A Best Book 2025 candidate.
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Bhavna Joshi
5.0 out of 5 stars Read it. It's a masterpiece
Reviewed in India on 15 July 2025
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"The present has become so strange, fractured and multi perspectival, that you can capture some aspects of it by writing about the past and recreating it" - Daniel Kehlmann
..& how perfectly has Kehlmann captured it
German stalwart filmmaker Georg Wilhelm Pabst ( G.W.Pabst) has been credited for launching some very notable German actresses Greta Garbo, Louise Brooks & Leni Riefenstahl (staunch Nazi supporter)
'Red' Pabst leaves Germany for the US, when Hitler got elected, owing to his leftist belief. But the treatment he received in Hollywood was way below his stature. An uncomfortable discussion with Reich envoy Kuno Krämer, plays out the actual life Pabst will live down the line. Kramer asks him to go back to Germany & make movies he deserves
A chance visit to Germany to admit his mother to Sanatorium takes an unusual turn that forces Pabst to stay back, work & make films
While on set he is directing great movies & taking decisions, he can't decide anything for himself in real life. His life is a combination of various compromises but with its share of fine moments of creativity
This is just the half way mark of the book
After this what unfolds in the book makes it a real masterpiece. My fav chapter is definitely Molander, which is an excellent exploration of Pabst's cinematic world & fictional view as to what happened to the movie 'der fall molander' which it seems was shot by Pabst (but never got released). No one really knows what happened to the reels of this film based on the novel by propaganda author Alfred Karrasch
Daniel explores the importance of Art, even if confined in boundaries. This book reflects on how Pabst was such an intelligent filmmaker who made movies as subtle commentary on the Nazi regimen. How immaculately he worked with people in a space where critics & criticism is a crime. His feverish love for his art is palpable
Some other notable characters are Pabst's devout wife Trude & son Jakob
I think the 1st & last chapter narrated by Pabst's assistant director Franz Wilzek bring in so much fervor, ambiguity keeping you absolutely on toes
Translation by Ross Benjamin is a fine work. One chapter 'Shadowplay' has been revised for English translation
some notable quotes :-
💥“Times are always strange. Art is always out of place. Always unnecessary when it’s made. And later, when you look back, it’s the only thing that mattered.”
💥“Do you think a train is still running?” “It must.” “Why?” “Because we need it.” Pabst had become so attuned to film editing that it seemed to him he could continue out here, as if everything he saw were up for manipulation
( This is more of a dialogue than a quotation. Have highlighted it from a very excellent section which showcases how organically Pabst started merging his real life situations with film making techniques. I had neither the prior knowledge of the German Film industry & nor much information about Film making techniques, but this section & this book made me fall in love with it all)
💥"Film was a new and disorderly medium, but that didn’t bother anyone— after all, the whole world lay in pieces. Only the future was bright. Once the turmoil of the present was overcome, there would never be war again, technology would develop, and everything that film wasn’t yet, it would become"
💥"....shadows have not only the colors of the background on which they fall, but at the same time those of the body that casts them. Or you will notice that the world is full of reflections: almost every object holds the world that surrounds it on its surface, points of light, outlines, and glimmers— all images contain other images"
A backless shot of Louise Brooks in the movie Pandora's Box has been mentioned categorically by the author to showcase how much liberty Pabst enjoyed as a filmmaker in Germany, whereas something like this would never have been allowed in Hollywood at that time ( due to the "implementation of the Hays Code, a set of self-imposed industry guidelines that prohibited suggestive nudity, among other things, in motion pictures. This code was enforced from 1934 to 1968.")
So while Pabst was comprising by staying back & making films in Germany, instead of going to Hollywood ( where he actually wanted to make films), he was also reaping success & freedom
A reel on the internet which shows scenes from the movie "The white hell of Pitz Palü". Some of these scenes have been beautifully described in the book. This movie was co-directed by Pabst and propaganda artist Leni Riefenstahl (who after the war was charged with the crime of being a close associate of Hitler). The making of the scenes that has been described in the book showcase how Leni was tolerated despite being an absolute snob and terrible actress, just coz messing with her would lead to direct transfer to concentration camps ( haven't shared the reel here coz of copyright infringement issues)
If this doesn't get shortlisted ( yes shortlisted) for International Booker Prize next year, I am going to cry my heart out 🥹)
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Eric Samuels
5.0 out of 5 stars A Lynchian Nightmare in Nazi Germany: Who is Jerzabek?
Reviewed in the United States on 3 October 2026
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I thought this was an incredible book, a captivating but disorienting read because confusion is the point and possibly the main character. On the surface it’s the fictionalized story of real life director G.W. Pabst, a once-successful but recently struggling artist trying to recapture past glory by compromising with the Nazi regime. He thinks he can remain a cutting-edge visionary in an exciting new medium, but the compromise swallows him completely and turns his actual life into the kind of film noir he directs. He thinks he can create art in an environment where politics substitutes for fact, only to see the undermining of fact destroy the foundation of reality his art lives on.
But that’s only on the surface. A layer deeper and you get an amazing character study that really illustrates the types of characters you’d only find in a nazified Germany. My favorite is the local caretaker Jerzabek, who turns out to be the local party leader, with all the alternating servility and sadism that you’d expect to find when the last become the first in a regime like that. Another great character is Pabst’s own son, who adopts cruelty as a survival mechanism in the brutal, nazified grade school he is thrust into, with the predictable corruption of his initially innocent nature. Because the story is based on actual people, real and fictional characters appear and disappear in distorted and sometimes darkly comic form, contributing to the sense of unreality that runs throughout the book.
But underneath even that, another layer deeper, and the book really challenges you with a supernatural element to everything that is happening. What really is happening? Is it just an accident of history or is some ancient malign force controlling it all? Reviews that I’ve read do not go very much into what I would call this third layer, but I think it's this layer that makes the book exceptional. Supernatural events creep disturbingly into the story at multiple times. Why are they happening? Are the characters so conflicted and confused that they are imagining these events? Is there a deep evil force behind the system? Or is the undermining of reality wrought by this regime so violent that it distorts physics itself? At the end, who is Jerzabek?
Although I’m not normally a fan of David Lynch, I would have to say this book presents the real mystery of what is happening in a way that I think his fans would really like. After so much has been written about Nazi Germany I did not think I’d find something this original and fascinating so I give it five stars.
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Kid JB
5.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing
Reviewed in Brazil on 12 December 2025
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Intriguing
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Engineer Klein
4.0 out of 5 stars Nit a bad read but a bit hard to follow at points
Reviewed in the United States on 15 August 2025
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The story of a German director who is constantly trying to make a memorable film. He starts off in the US and then finds himself stuck in Germany at the start of WWII and is making films for the Nazi government.
There are points where the story is through the perspective of a director in that some scenes are written twice (as in he does more than one take). It is a bit hard to follow that, but it is a unique way of writing.
Some parts of the book appear to be written just to provide filler (as in they dont seem to add to the wider story), but it is interesting to see people have their own perspective to the oddities of the main character.
Still, you see the Nazi mindset in ways not typically portrayed. There are writers, actors, directors, and even house servants who have a newfound arrogance and inflated sense of self-worth now that they have the backing of the Nazi party.
Parts make the book difficult to put down. Others raise questions as to if they are relevant.
If you want a different kind of WWII story or a unique book about film and theater it is definitely worth the read.
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D. Morris
4.0 out of 5 stars Shows what it would be like to live under the Nazis
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 August 2026
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The problem a novel like this faces, in dealing with the lives of actual people, is that we know that the real Pabst, Garbo, Brooks, etc, will have been far more complex characters than the novelist is able to convey -- unless, perhaps, they're Henry James. So it exposes the superficiality of fiction, a shortcoming that a novelist can best overcome either by having a smaller cast, avoiding the use of real-life figures (note that Napoleon is only seen briefly at a distance by Tolstoy's "camera"), or by adopting a first-person narrator who obviously couldn't describe anyone else except from the perspective of an observer.
Anyway, that's the bad. What is really good here is Kehlmann's imagination when describing Pabst's artistic process, especially when it comes to The Molander Case, which sounds like the late Expressionist masterpiece we all wish really existed.
Also superb is the way Kehlmann conveys the sense of danger, absurdity and random violence under the Nazis. It's a society run by brutal, gleeful, resentful idiots. Kehlmann shows (eg in the chapter "German Literature") that the cost of living under such a regime is that you must sacrifice your integrity, even your identity. Emily Wilson recently wrote in the LRB: "The most troubling ethical problem with Nolan’s Odyssey concerns the decision to film part of the movie in the occupied territory of Western Sahara, thus normalising the ongoing violence against the indigenous Sahrawi people." That's a far milder version of the appalling choice Pabst makes here.
There are misjudgments. The chapter "Father of Lies", where Pabst meets Goebbels, suddenly introduces jarring magic realist touches, with multiple Goebbelses appearing. I realize it's meant to echo the surreal interlude in Paracelsus but, coming as it does after Pabst getting drunk and oversleeping, it's confusing rather than disturbing. I spent the whole chapter wondering whether it was intentionally dreamlike or was an actual dream. As Hitchcock said, when the audience is confused they start thinking and analyzing, and then they're no longer held by the story.
The P.G. Wodehouse chapter is well done, but apparently was very different (and less subtle in its humour?) in the original German. Is that because German translations of Wodehouse alter the style of his humour to something crasser? Otherwise it's hard to see why there needed to be two versions.
The use of the phrase "a perfect storm" to mean a cascade of calamities adding together (p 301) is anachronistic, by the way. When 19th century writers used the term they just meant an absolute storm (cf "a perfect stranger").
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Rahul Raj
5.0 out of 5 stars Nice book quality of paper is premium
Reviewed in India on 9 September 2026
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Nice book quality of paper is premium
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sameer
3.0 out of 5 stars Average complicated story
Reviewed in India on 10 February 2026
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Well it’s a complicated book
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victoria
5.0 out of 5 stars the Director
Reviewed in the United States on 9 July 2026
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This is a beautifully written historical novel. Many characters and incidents that swirl around Europe in the pre WW 11 times and then during the war. I found it riveting.
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William de Rham
3.0 out of 5 stars Informative but not very enjoyable.
Reviewed in the United States on 20 December 2025
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Readers interested in what it might have been like to direct major motion pictures in wartime Nazi Germany may find Daniel Kehlmann’s “The Director” informative. It’s a novel in which Mr. Kehlmann fictionalizes the war time work and personal experiences of G. W. Pabst, an Austrian film director who rose to prominence in Berlin during the Weimar Republic of the 1920’s. While I found much to admire about the work, I can’t say that I enjoyed it.
The fictionalization of Pabst’s life begins in Hollywood, where Pabst and his family have gone to escape Hitler and National Socialism. Although film industry heavyweights pay much lip service to Pabst’s prominence, they refuse to allow him to make the films he wants to make and instead relegate him to a project he knows will flop. When the movie bombs, he's unable to get more work and moves his family to France to direct films there. Now too close to Germany and the Nazis for comfort, he decides to return to the U.S. But first he must place his aged and ailing mother in a sanitorium in Austria. He’s in the midst of doing so when World War II begins, trapping him and his family. Pabst is compelled by Joseph Goebbels to make movies for Germany. The rest of the novel goes on to describe various episodes during the war, including the making of a film that was lost and has never been seen.
On the plus side, Mr. Klehmann writes descriptive, literary prose. Some of his devices--particularly those concerning reactions under stress--are creative and interesting. He ably demonstrates some of the evils of totalitarianism. In particular he depicts how in such a society one has to watch everything one says for fear that anything critical will be reported to the authorities and result in torture and imprisonment. And he shows us how surreal life can become in a place where almost no one can say what they mean or mean what they say.
On the negative side, “The Director” is very depressing, filled with characters who are either difficult to fathom or are simply not all that sympathetic. Matters are not helped by the inclusion of several characters suffering from dementia, one of whom narrates parts of the novel. Also, that the story line is more episodic than it is continuous—jumping from period to period, each period involving different characters—makes for a sometimes confusing, laborious read.
All in all, a three-star read.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Read it
Reviewed in India on 20 June 2026
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Awesome book
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Kieran Roberts
5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary novel
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 August 2026
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This is an extraordinary novel. Fascinating, darkly comic and at times shocking. It was a gripping read that left me haunted and with much to think about. Highly recommended.
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John Barlow
4.0 out of 5 stars Art compromised by politics
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 June 2026
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Very good and imaginative story using the life of G W Pabst to explore the conflict and compromises between art and politics on a most human level.
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Perikles
5.0 out of 5 stars an artful and effective novel
Reviewed in the United States on 20 July 2026
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The Director is a refreshingly astute and imaginative work. It creates a vivid if troubling mosaic-like portrait of the historical GW Pabst, using multiple and sometimes unexpected perspectives to give the reader a sense of the director’s curious insight and limitations.
Well worth the effort.
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N. J. Schrock
4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting read
Reviewed in the United States on 8 April 2026
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An interesting read.
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Very well written
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 February 2026
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An absorbing and enlightening book about skilled people and the unexpected twists and turns dealt to them during the disorientation of war and it's cruelty. Very well written and translated. Many thanks to both author and translator.
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Mike
5.0 out of 5 stars The Director by Daniel Kehlman - Insinuating Compromises
Reviewed in the United States on 18 June 2025
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The novel, The Director, by Daniel Kehlman is, unfortunately, a timely narrative about obsession, its consequences, and how opponents of authoritarian regimes can be subtly, and not so subtly, compromised through gradual processes that use their personal goals and obsessions to serve the regime. The book tells the story of Austrian director GW Pabst and how his dismay at the Hollywood machine and a forged telegram from his mother led him back to Austria just before WWII. Trapped and refusing initially to play along with the Nazis, he gradually is compromised by working on “non-political” to achieve his art. The effect on his family is dire and he loses his ‘masterpiece’ in the last days of the Third Reich. Kehlman does a masterful job of blending the insights of multiple characters - mostly historic people with fictional characters as well - to illustrate how oppressive and devastating to individual character and integrity an authoritarian regimes drive to total control becomes. A good cautionary tale for the US and other countries facing demagogues.
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hanswernerhenze
5.0 out of 5 stars Revealing GWP
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 September 2025
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An exceptionally brilliant book. Whilst not a completely accurate account of the dramatic events surrounding the circumstances before, during and after Pabst’s return to Nazi Germany, by adopting the freedom of the novel form is able to illicit a far more profound response from the reader than the mere recitation of the historical facts. Kehlmann’s writing has a superb clarity which is maintained in the English translation.
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HA
4.0 out of 5 stars fascinating but not always accessible
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 December 2025
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difficult sometimes to follow till you realise that each chapter is a different character. Fascinating insight into the German film industry of the 1930s
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L. L. Bennett
4.0 out of 5 stars What would you do?
Reviewed in the United States on 16 March 2026
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Good read.
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Geoff Crocker
4.0 out of 5 stars Compromise under totalitarianism
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 June 2026
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Daniel Kehlmann provides a deep account of compromise under a totalitarian regime. G W Pabst decides to return from failed filming in LA to the Nazi regime for a number of reasons only he could know, ranging from his mother’s health, his career prospects et al. His wife Gertrude objects, but is trapped by his decision and its consequences, including the propaganda films he made and the loss of their son who joins to Nazis and is maimed in war. Studies of how others react are telling, from the caretaker who becomes a powerful local party boss, a process typical of totalitarian regimes, to the soft compromises many make to survive. Interpretation becomes difficult once Kehlmann mixes fiction with fact. His ending is somewhat contrived, convoluted, and unsatisfactory.
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Andy Cox
2.0 out of 5 stars Too Many Names, Not Enough Story
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 August 2026
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
A frustrating read. Kehlmann buries an interesting premise under excessive detail and a slow-burning plot that never quite ignites. The constant shifts between names make it a genuine struggle to keep track of who’s who — more effort than reward. The story meanders rather than builds, and I closed it feeling underwhelmed.
The exception: the Goebbels chapter. Sharp, unsettling, and easily the strongest section in the book — a glimpse of what the rest could have been.
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Redeyefish
2.0 out of 5 stars Yawn
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 October 2026
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
Oh, my word, what a boring book.
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Laurence Kirshbaum
5.0 out of 5 stars The Life of a True Artist Amidst Tyrannies
Reviewed in the United States on 27 December 2025
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This is a work of remarkable genius. It captures the day-to-day agonies of a world famous director from the United States brought to Germany by his need to help take care of an ailing mother. As the Nazi atmosphere flames all around him, he is desperately trying to create and direct quality films that are up to the highest Hollywood standards while operating in the chaotic world of censorship and a nation desperately trying to rally around its sordid principles of conquest. The minute details of film making are cast against the practical reality of compromising to get a film made with a hopeless mission of truth. In the end the author shows that art can withstand the ravages of human evil and be remembered for its inherent beauty.
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Lynne Davis
3.0 out of 5 stars Just another horrible massacre
Reviewed in the United States on 13 July 2026
Format: Audio CDVerified Purchase
Interesting book. I love the Holocoust
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