Christian Kracht is a Swiss writer whose works often explore themes of identity, rootlessness, and the search for meaning in the modern world. His writing is known for its incisiveness and often provocative perspective on contemporary society. Kracht examines the complexities of human relationships and cultural influences with characteristic irony and precise language. His novels draw readers into deep reflections on what it means to be human in a globalized age.
The story follows a middle-aged narrator on a questionable road trip through Switzerland with his ailing, alcoholic mother. As they attempt to squander her wealth from armament investments, their journey is marked by constant bickering, reckless behavior, and a series of absurd encounters, including frustrating their taxi driver. Amidst their chaotic escapades, they confront their past and the broader implications of moral failures, all while grappling with their dependence on vodka.
“A great Faustian fable, and a literary endeavor of historical ingenuity that we now may start to characterize as Krachtian.” —Karl Ove Knausgaard The follow-up to Christian Kracht's acclaimed novel Imperium (a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year), The Dead mines the feverish early years of the Nazis' rise to power for a Gothic tale of global conspiracy, personal loss, and historical entanglements large and small. In Berlin, Germany, in the early 1930s, the acclaimed Swiss film director Emil Nägeli receives the assignment of a lifetime: travel to Japan and make a film to establish the dominance of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi empire once and for all. But his handlers are unaware that Nägeli has colluded with the Jewish film critics to pursue an alternative objective—to create a monumental, modernist, allegorical spectacle to warn the world of the horror to come. Meanwhile, in Japan, the film minister Masahiko Amakasu intends to counter Hollywood’s growing influence and usher in a new golden age of Japanese cinema by exploiting his Swiss visitor. The arrival of Nägeli’s film-star fiancée and a strangely thuggish, pistol-packing Charlie Chaplin—as well as the first stirrings of the winds of war—soon complicates both Amakasu’s and Nägeli’s plans, forcing them to face their demons . . . and their doom.
A satirical indictment of extremism follows the exploits of a radical vegetarian and nudist from Nuremberg who voyages to 1902's Bismarck Archipelago to establish a colony based on the worship of the sun and coconuts.
