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Jesus Christ Kinski
From the prize-winning author of THE GALLOWS POLE and CUDDY
Jesus Christ Kinski
From the prize-winning author of THE GALLOWS POLE and CUDDY
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Description
Bloomsbury presents Jesus Christ Kinski by Benjamin Myers, read by Rory Kinnear.
A bold and brilliant short work by the author of the Goldsmiths Prize-winning Cuddy
November, 1971. Berlin, Germany. Opening night.
Klaus Kinski, Germany's most controversial actor, steps into the spotlight to a crowd of thousands.
After years of making movies abroad, he has returned to the stage for a much-publicized one-man performance about Jesus Christ. As the crowd turn on him and violence is threatened, it is also very nearly his last. After this week, he will never perform on stage again.
Exactly fifty years later, a hypochondriac writer, housebound by winter snowstorms, becomes fixated with video footage of Kinski at his most manic.
In this forensic analysis, he strays into the darker corners of modern culture, and finally begins to understand the compulsive urge that drives artists to the edge of sanity in their pursuit of perfection.
Jesus Christ Kinski is a novel about a film about a performance about Jesus. It is a daring act of literary ventriloquism, a meditation on censorship, creativity, loneliness – and just how far our tolerance is tested by bad people who make great art.
Praise for Benjamin Myers
'One of our finest, and most deftly imaginative, writers' i news
'Radical and gorgeous' Max Porter
'A writer of extraordinary and incandescent talent' Alex Preston
Product details
| Published | 23 Oct 2025 |
|---|---|
| Format | Audiobook |
| Duration | 3 hours and 7 minutes |
| ISBN | 9781526663405 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Circus |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
About the contributors
Reviews
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Jesus Christ Kinski is extraordinary. It is an assault. It is an affront to decency. It is Klaus Kinski, right there on the page. It is hateful. And I loved reading it. It takes real daring to take on such a subject and real skill to carry it off with so much humanity. The talent of Benjamin Myers is something to behold.
SAM JORDISON
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Spellbinding … the bold, inventive structure of Jesus Christ Kinski gives Myers the room to reflect on stagecraft, censorship, mental health, loneliness, cancel culture – and what we do with great art made by horrible people
INDEPENDENT, The best books of 2025
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Klaus Kinski was one of the world's most controversial (and physically dangerous) actors. Myers's novel, born of a real-life lockdown obsession, retells, via a demented monologue, the time Kinski decided to play Jesus Christ on stage in front of an audience of rebellious German youths
Telegraph, The greatest books of 2025
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A tour de force of literary ventriloquism … His intense, double-edged fiction reminds us again of how exciting – in the right hands – the novel can be
OBSERVER
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The book's achievement lies in the throbbing life force of Kinski himself. His is a dark star, close to collapse. It offers no guiding light but continues to burn five decades on
NEW STATESMAN
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Disturbingly enjoyable
LITERARY REVIEW
























