Book Club
German Book Club Reads Daniel Kehlmann

04/23/19
6:00pm
Goethe-Institut New York

At the April German Book Club meeting we will discuss Daniel Kehlmann's Ich und Kaminski (Suhrkamp, 2004, €8,00 ISBN: 978-3518456538).

Sebastian Zöllner, art historian, plans his big break: a biography of the legendary but nearly forgotten painter Manel Kaminski, who long ago gained renown as the "Blind Painter." The unscrupulous and ambitious careerist makes his way to the remote chalet high up in the Alps where the aging artist lives withdrawn and shielded by his close friends. Zöllner forces himself into Kaminski’s house, life, and past and whisks him away on a dangerous and absurd journey to find Kaminski’s childhood love, who is believed to be dead. On the way, the journalist hopes to use his cunning and cockiness to draw out the artist’s secrets. But he will soon find out that the old man, blind or not, is far more than he bargained for.

A highly ironic novel in which the events constantly take new and surprising turns, a brilliantly funny game of confusion on grand delusions and thruths, on manipulation, on moral and art.

Kindly RSVP via email to library-newyork@goethe.de if you plan to attend.