Fame: Daniel Kehlmann in Conversation with Carol Brown Janeway
Daniel Kehlmann talks about FAME on September 23 in NYC
The month of September 2010 will be “German-American Friendship Month” in the city of New York. It is the fourth consecutive time, that the city honors German-American culture and the contributions of immigrants from Germany by dedicating an entire month of celebration, in which German-Americans organize many events and festivities.
One of the event highlights of the German-American Friendship Month, is:
Reading by Daniel Kehlmann: Fame – 7 PM: Goethe-Institut Wyoming Building, 5 East 3rd Street, NYC
Bestselling author Daniel Kehlmann (“Measuring the World”), will be reading some loosely connected stories from his latest book, “Fame”.
Daniel Kehlmann leapt to literary prominence with the publication of Measuring the World (Pantheon Books, 2006), now available in 40 languages. So he knows something about the topic of his new book, Fame, which just appeared in translation by Carol Brown Janeway (Pantheon Books, 2010).
Fame is a funny and wickedly perceptive take on the twists and turns that notoriety, or the lack thereof, can play in people’s lives. The characters of Fame cross each other’s paths (and that of their author) in unexpected and, in some cases, life-altering ways.
Reading/Conversation
09/23/10
7:00pm
Goethe-Institut New York
72 Spring Street, 11th Floor
New York, NY 10012 (between Lafayette and Crosby)
In English
Free
+1 (212) 439-8700
Fame: A Novel in Nine Episodes
(Pantheon Books, Sept. 14, 2020)
In FAME (Pantheon Books / September 14, 2010), European literary superstar Daniel Kehlmann invites you to imagine being famous-recognized on the street, adored by people who have never met you, and known the world over-but then one day you get stuck in a country where celebrity means nothing, where no one speaks your language and you don’t speak theirs, where no one knows your face, and you have no way of calling home. How would your fame help you then?
Fame and facelessness, truth and deception, spin their way through all nine episodes of FAME, a captivating, wickedly funny, and perpetually surprising novel, as paths cross and plots thicken, as characters become real people and real people morph into characters. The result is a dazzling tour de force by one of Europe’s finest young writers.
About the author
Daniel Kehlmann’s Measuring the World was translated into more than forty languages. Awards his work has received include the Candide Prize, the Literature Prize of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the Heimito von Doderer Literature Award, the Kleist Prize, the WELT Literature Prize, and the Thomas Mann Prize. Kehlmann divides his time between Vienna and Berlin.
“Brilliant . . . . Layers of connection, irony, despair, and humor distinguish this masterful work and announce Kehlmann as a worthy heir to Bowles and Camus.”
–Publishers Weekly (starred)
“[A] darkly comic tour de force . . . . A brazen take on the modern yearning for recognition. Kehlmann is a writer worth reading.” –Kirkus Reviews (starred)
“In Kehlmann’s wickedly clever novel of nine interconnected stories, fame is something his cast of widely disparate characters seek, avoid, flirt with, and succumb to-sometimes all in the same episode . . . . Kehlmann’s sundry cast members are luminous creations, and the coincidental devices that link them are brilliant gambits. Throughout, Kehlmann showcases a flair for devious satire as he ponders fact and fiction, fame and infamy.”
–Booklist (starred)
“Who would have thought contemporary Central European literature could be so fun and so funny? Daniel Kehlmann is who. The young Austrian prodigy, famous everywhere but in the United States, has given us a real beauty of a book, farcical, satiric, melancholic, and humane. Modern fame may have been invented in America, but nobody has dramatized its paradoxes and heartbreaks more entertainingly than the European Kehlmann does here.” –Jonathan Franzen