Jesus Christ Kinski

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
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 *
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 *
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 *
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 *
Disturbingly enjoyable * LITERARY REVIEW *
A daring experimentation ... The funniest comic novel I've read in ages -- SAM LEITH * TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, Books of the Year *
A compelling autofictional account which exerts a strange charm … Plunges us into Kinski’s fevered mind … A riot of salty vituperation * GUARDIAN *
Brilliant ... The bravura stylistic flourishes, the wild imagination, the conjuring of a damaged and maddening psyche – this book is strange and electrifying ... When Myers’s Kinski – vituperative, committed, possessed – grabs us by the neck and spits in our faces, deep down we know it’s what we deserve ... One of our brightest young novelists * DAILY TELEGRAPH *
A furious, erratic voice, speaking to itself in lonely lines ... The words of a genius, delivered by the mouth of a drunk. Sometimes they look like poetry, sometimes they verge on prose. Sometimes the letters go completely astray and come out like chunks of vomit on the page. Past and present collide, inner and outer monologue muddle, but no one escapes Kinski’s ire * FINANCIAL TIMES *
An experimental and distinguished novel ... An idiosyncratic and destabilising performance that matches Kinski’s own * SPECTATOR *
Highly original, bold, inventive … Myers captures the dark and forceful energy of Kinski and his startlingly aggressive and vicious mind … A stunning rendering * independent.co.uk, Book of the Month *
Exciting, shocking, funny and fascinating … Experimental in form but highly readable. Hugely entertaining … The only question is where Myers will take us next … His best book yet * NEW WORLD *
Benjamin Myers is truly one of the most exciting writers we have, and Jesus Christ Kinski cements his reputation as an innovative and versatile author, able to write an astonishing range of styles while remaining utterly compelling and surprising. Here is Myers at his experimental and provocative best, raising questions of literary censorship, commercialism and the separation of one’s appreciation of an artist’s life and work * FOYLES, Top Ten Reads for October *
A bravura conceit written with messianic intensity, Kinski coming over like a cross between Hitler and Iggy Pop … Myers is one of the UK’s finest authors, his restless mind never settling on one style or genre, and his latest – a which I read in one sitting – asks questions about the creative process and “the art” vs the artist * THE CRACK *
Makes most contemporary fiction look bloodless by comparison * DAILY MAIL *
Absolutely feral. Brilliant writing. Best contemporary novel I have read in an age. Completely original -- DAVID KEENAN
A vivid demonstration of the way in which extreme conditions conjure up unexpected subjects, hovering outside the room, tapping on the window pane, wanting to be let in * TLS *
Jesus Christ Kinski is a kaleidoscopic portrait of an unraveling mind. Unflinching, audacious and brutally beautiful, like nothing else you'll read this year -- JAN CARSON
A record of Benjamin Myers’ obsessive infatuation with a terrible man striving to embody a holy one, Jesus Christ Kinski is a vivid, singular, unexpected novel from a writer who always surprises and never disappoints -- JOHN HIGGS
As wild and tempestuous and unapologetic as Klaus Kinski, Benjamin Myers’s Jesus Christ Kinski is a rollercoaster character study of one of our most loved and hated cultural icons. Myers taps into the fire and fury in Kinski’s art and soul, his workaholic, egocentric and testosterone-driven life, while reveals his vulnerabilities and artistic intransigence. This is a hair-raising performance written and directed by one of the most outrageously imaginative writers of our time -- KIT FAN
Rabid with life-force and intrinsically confrontational, Jesus Christ Kinski brings us perilously close to the bars of the cage, the better to behold the monstrous enigma of a man both repellant and magnetic, unforgettable and unforgivable. Benjamin Myers’ timely novel at once asks us how we are to reckon with society’s brilliant-bad, and considers how each of us must accommodate the raging demons that threaten to devour us -- ROB DOYLE
Praise for Benjamin Myers: 'Dizzyingly inventive * Daily Telegraph *
A visionary epic * Guardian, Books of the Year 2023 *
It's hard to think of many people who can write with such attentiveness, tenderness and force about the importance of human connection and the redemptive power of art -- Wendy Erskine
One of the most interesting, restless writers of his generation * Daily Mail *