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6:30 PM
Lisez la littérature allemande !
Book club|"The Director" by Daniel Kehlmann
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Goethe-Institut Montreal, Montreal
- Language French
- Price Free admission - RSVP required
Our upcoming Lisez l'Europe book club will feature a German novel, and will take place Tuesday February 10 2026 at 6:30 pm at the Goethe-Institut Montreal.
The book chosen for this session is "The Director” by Daniel Kehlmann (translated by Ross Benjamin). The discussion will be held in French and moderated by Marie-Pierre Poulin, librarian at the Goethe-Institut Montreal.
Please confirm your presence before February 9 at the following address:
lisezleurope-mtl@goethe.de.
About the novel:
An artist’s life, a pact with the devil, and the dangerous illusions of the silver screen.
G.W. Pabst, one of cinema’s greatest directors of the 20th century, was filming in France when the Nazis seized power. To escape the horrors of the new and unrecognizable Germany, he fled to Hollywood. But now, under the blinding California sun, the world-famous director suddenly looks like a nobody. Not even Greta Garbo, the Hollywood actress whom he made famous, can help him.
When he receives word that his elderly mother is ill, he finds himself back in his homeland of Austria, which is now called Ostmark. Pabst, his wife, and his young son are suddenly confronted with the barbaric nature of the regime. So, when Joseph Goebbels—the minister of propaganda in Berlin—sees the potential for using the European film icon for his directorial genius and makes big promises to Pabst and his family, Pabst must consider Goebbels’s thinly veiled order. 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.
Kehlmann’s latest oeuvre explores the complicated relationships and distinctions between art and power, beauty and barbarism, cog and conspirator.
(simonandschuster.com)
About the author:
Daniel Kehlmann was born in Munich in 1975. His 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 forty languages and is one of the biggest successes in post-war German literature. He currently lives in Berlin and New York.
(simonandschuster.com)
The book can be obtained (in French) at the following bookstores:
Librairie Gallimard: (10% discount for Lisez l’Europe members)
librairie@gallimardmontreal.com
514 499-2012
Librairie du Square au Carré St-Louis: (10% discount for Lisez l’Europe members)
librairiedusquare@librairiedusquare.com
514 845-7617
Librairie du Square - Outremont: (10% discount for Lisez l’Europe members)
outremont@librairiedusquare.com
514 303-0612
The ebook is available at Indigo.ca.
A few copies (book) are also available through the Grande Bibliothèque and the Montreal public library network. One German copy (book) and a few ebooks are available from the library of the Goethe-Institut Montreal.
The book chosen for this session is "The Director” by Daniel Kehlmann (translated by Ross Benjamin). The discussion will be held in French and moderated by Marie-Pierre Poulin, librarian at the Goethe-Institut Montreal.
Please confirm your presence before February 9 at the following address:
lisezleurope-mtl@goethe.de.
About the novel:
An artist’s life, a pact with the devil, and the dangerous illusions of the silver screen.
G.W. Pabst, one of cinema’s greatest directors of the 20th century, was filming in France when the Nazis seized power. To escape the horrors of the new and unrecognizable Germany, he fled to Hollywood. But now, under the blinding California sun, the world-famous director suddenly looks like a nobody. Not even Greta Garbo, the Hollywood actress whom he made famous, can help him.
When he receives word that his elderly mother is ill, he finds himself back in his homeland of Austria, which is now called Ostmark. Pabst, his wife, and his young son are suddenly confronted with the barbaric nature of the regime. So, when Joseph Goebbels—the minister of propaganda in Berlin—sees the potential for using the European film icon for his directorial genius and makes big promises to Pabst and his family, Pabst must consider Goebbels’s thinly veiled order. 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.
Kehlmann’s latest oeuvre explores the complicated relationships and distinctions between art and power, beauty and barbarism, cog and conspirator.
(simonandschuster.com)
About the author:
Daniel Kehlmann was born in Munich in 1975. His 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 forty languages and is one of the biggest successes in post-war German literature. He currently lives in Berlin and New York.
(simonandschuster.com)
The book can be obtained (in French) at the following bookstores:
Librairie Gallimard: (10% discount for Lisez l’Europe members)
librairie@gallimardmontreal.com
514 499-2012
Librairie du Square au Carré St-Louis: (10% discount for Lisez l’Europe members)
librairiedusquare@librairiedusquare.com
514 845-7617
Librairie du Square - Outremont: (10% discount for Lisez l’Europe members)
outremont@librairiedusquare.com
514 303-0612
The ebook is available at Indigo.ca.
A few copies (book) are also available through the Grande Bibliothèque and the Montreal public library network. One German copy (book) and a few ebooks are available from the library of the Goethe-Institut Montreal.
Location
Goethe-Institut Montreal
In the form of a local corporation
1626 boul. St-Laurent
Bureau 100
Montreal H2X 2T1
Kanada
In the form of a local corporation
1626 boul. St-Laurent
Bureau 100
Montreal H2X 2T1
Kanada