A masterly achievement a work of imaginative grandeur and complete artistic control' Ian
McEwan 'Brilliant and unputdownable' Salman Rushdie He's a trickster a player a jester. His
handshake's like a pact with the devil his smile like a crack in the clouds he's watching you
now and he's gone when you turn. Tyll Ulenspiegel is here! In a village like every other
village in Germany a scrawny boy balances on a rope between two trees. He's practising. He
practises by the mill by the blacksmiths he practises in the forest at night where the Cold
Woman whispers and goblins roam. When he comes out he will never be the same. Tyll will escape
the ordinary villages. In the mines he will defy death. On the battlefield he will run faster
than cannonballs. In the courts he will trick the heads of state. As a travelling entertainer
his journey will take him across the land and into the heart of a never-ending war. A prince's
doomed acceptance of the Bohemian throne has European armies lurching brutally for dominion and
now the Winter King casts a sunless pall. Between the quests of fat counts witch-hunters and
scheming queens Tyll dances his mocking fugue exposing the folly of kings and the wisdom of
fools. With macabre humour and moving humanity Daniel Kehlmann lifts this legend from medieval
German folklore and enters him on the stage of the Thirty Years' War. When citizens become the
playthings of politics and puppetry Tyll in his demonic grace and his thirst for freedom is
the very spirit of rebellion - a cork in water a laugh in the dark a hero for all time.
