Daniel Kehlmann talks to Misha Glenny

Austrian film director G.W. Pabst was one of the greatest directors of his era, but when the Nazis seized power he found himself forced to return to Germany, despite plans to emigrate to America.

Daniel Kehlmann’s new novel The Director fictionalises the story of Pabst, who made two films under Josef Goebbels, the minister of propaganda in Berlin.

Kehlmann talks to Misha Glenny about The Director, what literature is capable of, and writing about art, power and barbarism.

Kehlmann’s 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 14 languages and is one of the biggest successes in post-war German literature.