Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
"What would happen if Adolf Hitler woke up in modern-day Berlin? In a bestselling satirical novel, he'd end up a TV comedy star . . . Look Who's Back] has unsurprisingly sparked debate in a country that has grappled for decades with Hitler's unconscionable legacy."-Time
Timur Vermes' record-breaking bestseller, Look Who's Back, is a satirical novel that imagines what would happen if Hilter reawakened in present-day Germany. The book was a massive success in Germany, selling more than 1.5 million copies. Janet Maslin of The New York Times called Look Who's Back"desperately funny . . . an ingenious comedy of errors."
In the novel, Adolf Hitler wakes up in 2011 from a 66-year sleep in his subterranean Berlin bunker to find the Germany he knew entirely changed: Internet-driven media spreads ideas in minutes and fumes celebrity obsession; immigration has produced multicultural neighborhoods bringing together people of varying race, ethnicity, and religion; and the most powerful person in government is a woman. Hitler is immediately recognized . . . as an impersonator of uncommon skill. The public assumes the fulminating leader of the Nazi party is a performer who is always in character, and soon his inevitable viral appeal begets YouTube stardom, begets television celebrity on a Turkish-born comedian's show. His bigoted rants are mistaken for a theatrical satire-exposing prejudice and misrepresentation-and his media success emboldens Hitler to start his own political party, and set the country he finds a shambles back to rights.
With daring and dark humor, Look Who's Back skewers the absurdity and depravity of the cult of personality in modern media culture.
Synopsis
HE'S BACK AND HE'S FUHRIOUS
"Desperately funny . . . An ingenious comedy of errors." --Janet Maslin, The New York Times
"Satire at its best." --Newsweek
In this record-breaking bestseller, Timur Vermes imagines what would happen if Adolf Hilter reawakened in present-day Germany: YouTube stardom.
Adolf Hitler wakes up on a patch of open ground, alive and well. It's the summer of 2011 and things have changed--no Eva Braun, no Nazi party, no war. Hitler barely recognizes his beloved Fatherland, filled with immigrants and run by a woman.
People certainly recognize him--as a flawless impersonator who refuses to break character. The unthinkable happens, and the ranting Hitler goes viral, becomes a YouTube star, gets his own TV show, and people begin to listen. But the Fuhrer has another program with even greater ambition in mind--to set the country he finds in shambles back to rights.
With daring dark humor, Look Who's Back is a perceptive study of the cult of personality and of how individuals rise to fame and power in spite of what they preach.