Tyll: A Novel

Tyll: A Novel

<b>From the internationally best-selling author of <i>You Should Have Left, Measuring the World, </i>and <i>F, </i>a transfixing retelling of the German myth of Tyll Ulenspiegel: a story about the devastation of war and a beguiling artist’s decision never to die</b><br />  <br /> Daniel Kehlmann masterfully weaves the fates of many historical figures into this enchanting work of magical realism and adventure. This account of the seventeenth-century vagabond performer and trickster Tyll Ulenspiegel begins when he’s a scrawny boy growing up in a quiet village. When his father, a miller with a secret interest in alchemy and magic, is found out by the church, Tyll is forced to flee with the baker’s daughter, Nele. They find safety and companionship with a traveling performer, who teaches Tyll his trade. And so begins a journey of discovery and performance for Tyll, as he travels through a continent devastated by the Thirty Years’ War and encounters along the way a hangman, a fraudulent Jesuit scholar, and the exiled King Frederick and Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia. <br />  <br /> <i>Tyll </i>displays Kehlmann’s remarkable narrative gifts and confirms the power of art in the face of the senseless brutality of history.<br /><br /><br /><i>Translated from the German by Ross Benjamin</i>