Tyll

From the internationally best-selling author of You Should Have Left, Measuring the World, and F, a retelling of the German myth of Tyll Ulenspiegel: a story about the devastation of war and a beguiling artist's decision never to die. 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 boy growing up in a quiet village. When his father, a miller with a secret interest in alchemy and magic, is caught by the church, Tyll flees with the baker's daughter, Nele. They find safety with a traveling performer, who teaches Tyll his trade. His journey takes him through a continent ravaged by the Thirty Years' War, where he encounters a hangman, a fraudulent Jesuit scholar, and the exiled King Frederick and Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia.