A short life of the author
Daniel Kehlmann (b. 13 January 1975) was born in Munich to an Austrian family. His father, Michael Kehlmann, was a television director. He studied philosophy and German literature at the University of Vienna. He has lived in Vienna, Berlin, and New York.
Life and Career
Die Vermessung der Welt (Measuring the World, 2005) — a comic novel about the contrasting lives of Alexander von Humboldt, the restless explorer, and Carl Friedrich Gauss, the sedentary mathematician — was a publishing sensation: it sold six million copies in Germany alone and was translated into over forty languages.
Ruhm (Fame, 2009) — nine interconnected stories about identity in the age of mobile phones — and F (2013) — about three half-brothers and their con-artist father — demonstrated his formal range.
Tyll (2017) — a reimagining of the medieval trickster Till Eulenspiegel set during the Thirty Years’ War — is his most ambitious work: a picaresque novel about war, power, and the role of the fool that was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize.
Major Works and Themes
Kehlmann writes about knowledge, identity, and the comic absurdity of intellectual ambition. His fiction is formally inventive, historically grounded, and animated by a philosophical wit.
Key Works
- Measuring the World (2005)
- Tyll (2017) — International Booker shortlist
Collecting Kehlmann
German originals (Rowohlt) are the primary collected form. English translations (Pantheon, Quercus) bring $10–$25.