Tyll

If Shakespeare were alive today and writing a novel, it would be just like Tyll. Tyll Ulenspiegel, the immortal prankster, creates carnival fun in and from the turbulent period of the Thirty Years' War. The absent-minded miller is put on a witch trial, and his son Tyll then sets off with his adopted sister: he travels through war-torn Europe as a fair showman, and as a court jester even reaches the Winter King's palace. Or is it all just a figment of the imagination? The reader just scratches his head in the endless mirror game of adventures, where the border between fantasy and reality blurs, until the flow of the tale takes over. Daniel Kehlmann, one of the most important authors of contemporary European literature, in his main work so far proclaims with amazing vigor that although one can die, the joy of life is immortal.