Jesus Christ Kinski

A bold, inventive short novel by Benjamin Myers, Jesus Christ Kinski unfolds across two eras to probe art, censorship, and the fixation on perfection. Set in Berlin in November 1971, it traces Klaus Kinski’s controversial one-man performance about Jesus, amid a crowd’s vehemence and the threat of violence, a moment that may mark the end of his stage career. Exactly fifty years later, a hypochondriac writer, snowbound by winter, becomes obsessed with footage of Kinski at his most manic. Through forensic analysis, the book spirals into contemporary culture’s darker corners and examines why artists push themselves to extremes. A novel about a film, a performance, and Jesus, it is described as a daring act of literary ventriloquism that meditates on censorship, creativity, loneliness, and the boundaries of art.

The narrative is framed as a refined meditation on obsession, fame, and the cost of artistic pursuit. It blends rigorous reflection with vivid, electrically charged prose, offering a unique take on how cinema, theatre, and literature intersect and challenge our perceptions of truth and genius. Readers are invited into a sharp, original voice that critics have celebrated as radical, gorgeous, and incandescent.

Features

• Dual timeline: 1971 Berlin and present day
• A novel about a film, a performance, Jesus
• Explores censorship, creativity, loneliness
• Literary ventriloquism at its daring best
• Praised as radical, original, inventive
• 208 pages, published by Bloomsbury Circus

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