The Magic of Silence

• Bestselling author Florian Illies: over 1 million copies sold
• Genre inventor Illies breaks with the conventions of
  biography and retells 250 years of German history with the life of Caspar David Friedrich's works

The adventurous life of Caspar David Friedrich's pictures of yearning – told thrillingly by Florian Illies

No German painter sparks such strong emotions as Caspar David Friedrich: his evening skies remain icons of longing to this day. He inspired Samuel Beckett to write "Waiting for Godot" and Walt Disney to create "Bambi". Goethe, however, was so enraged by the enigmatic melancholy of Friedrich’s paintings that he wanted to smash them on the edge of a table.

In a large-scale journey through time, bestselling author Florian Illies tells the story of Friedrich's paintings for the first time: countless of his most beautiful paintings were burned, first in his birthplace
Greifswald and then in World War II; others, like the "Chalk Cliffs on Rügen," emerge from the mists of history a hundred years after Friedrich's death. Illies tells the story of how Friedrich's paintings end up at the Russian czar's court, among a pile of winter tires in a Mafia car repair shop and in the kitchen of a German social housing apartment. Adored by Hitler just as much as by Heinrich von Kleist, passionately hated by Stalin and by the 68ers - 250 years of German
history become visible through Caspar David Friedrich's paintings.

"a multi-faceted literary monument (...) brilliantly successful (...) Illies tells stories like these adventurously well" - ttt - Titel Thesen Temperamente, Max Moor

"one of the most beautiful books I've read this year. A very, very wonderful book. Clever, readable, light [...] and deeply impressive. Very, very beautiful." - SPIEGEL Bestseller - Mehr lesen mit Elke Heidenreich, Elke Heidenreich

"his witty and elegantly written book" - Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Philipp Meier

"If you want to get to know Friedrich, you have to read Illies." - Bild am Sonntag, Walter M. Straten

"What lllies succeeds in doing is visualising history through short, flash-like literary anecdotes, in which one is led directly into the images as if with a hand-held camera (...)." - Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Niklas Maak

"With verve and a sense of effect. The author's happiness in looking at these pictures is transferred to the reader." - Welt am Sonntag, Tilman Krause

"a book that is extremely rich in relationships and very entertaining to read" - SWR2 lesenswert, Wolfgang Schneider

"An unconventionally crafted and delightfully beautiful book" - rbbKultur, Frank Dietschreit

"This as a warning: the book has a thoroughly intoxicating effect. The reader feels more and more captivated from page to page." - Focus Spezial, Markus Krischer

"a captivating and elegantly readable story - a worthy bestseller for the coming Friedrich anniversary year" - Augsburger Allgemeine, Stefanie Wirsching

"a clever, marvellous journey through time and we travel along, enchanted by the way Illies manages to bring entire epochs to life with just a few sentences." - Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, Elke Heidenreich

"Please read Florian Illies' Magic of Silence." - ZEIT Wissen

"the book is like travelling through time" - Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Katja Riemann

"He jumps back and forth through history in a casual way. This journey through time is as clever as it is entertaining, at times absurd and funny." - n-tv, Juliane Rohr