From faculty in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech, including a short one by yours truly on a medieval tale (of Till Eulenspiegel) resituated during the Thirty Year's War.
Tyll
By Daniel Kehlmann, Pantheon Books (translation copyright 2020)
“If you like historical fiction, and if you are in the mood to learn how human beings may have dealt with calamity, war, and pandemic 400 years ago, then Daniel Kehlmann’s Tyll might be a good pick. This novel, shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2020, transports the reader back into one of the most tumultuous and bloody periods of pre-modern European history, the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) and into the life of the notorious trickster figure and vagrant folk hero Tyll Eulenspiegel. Tyll’s fable-like adventures in an apocalyptic world question authority and absolute truths in ways that will feel eerily familiar to contemporary readers. His survival skills resemble that of a superhero, but his weapons are a mélange of naivete and wit. Is anyone surprised that Netflix is in the process of adapting the novel into a TV series?”
Read all the recommendations HERE.
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