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

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.