“People were many things before the war, and then they were something else entirely. I tell you it’s all mixed up and disordered.” – Daniel Kehlmann
The LiveMint Quote of the Day is from Daniel Kehlmann, the only male author shortlisted for the International Booker 2026. Kehlmann captures the profound instability of human identity when faced with the total collapse of society.
With this quote, he explores how the “civilized” self can be completely overwritten by the demands of survival and power during war.
Kehlmann rejected the idea of a fixed, essential soul. Instead, he argues that human character is dependent on circumstances.
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What does the quote mean
Kehlmann said that war destroys the logic of the people who go through it. People who once saw their lives as a steady, logical progression are forced to become soldiers, informers, or pacifists in order to become collaborators. The before and after versions of people walking through are often unable to recognize each other.
In his quote, he also made a cynical but realistic observation about moral fluidity.
Kehlmann suggested that character is not an immutable rock, but rather something that is shaped by environment. When the environment becomes “war,” previous rules of ethics and identity are thrown away and people are “something else entirely”—often something they themselves never thought possible.
Relevance today
Several countries such as Iran, Ukraine and Gaza are currently facing a state of war. At present, its global consequences are only economic.
But for them, Kehlmann’s “messy” nature of identity is highly relevant.
A software engineer from Kyiv or a teacher from Gaza becomes a “refugee” or a “combatant” overnight. Their professional and personal histories—the “many things” they were before—are often erased or rendered irrelevant by the unique, urgent identity that conflict has imposed on them.
On a less violent but equally pervasive scale, the COVID-19 pandemic has served as a global rift. This has forced a huge part of the population to rethink who they are.
The person “before” who valued the 60-hour work week in the office has become the “other” person who prefers remote flexibility or has left their industry entirely. The continuity of many lives has been “shuffled”, leading to the mass career shifts and lifestyle changes we see today.
In the age of social media and intense political division, we often see people undergo identity “confusion”. Friends or family members who were once moderate or apolitical may appear “something else entirely” due to radicalization or the “echo chamber” effect.
Their previous persona seems to have been discarded in favor of a new, often more aggressive ideological identity.
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Where does this quote come from?
The quote is from the book by director Daniel Kehlmann, nominated for the International Booker, set in the Nazi-controlled film industry.
Kehlmann told the organizers of the prestigious prize that the book was inspired by the film – “the particular moral charm of the medium and the way it can make compromises look like professionalism”.
He said the life of his book’s protagonist, filmmaker GW Pabst, offered him an entry into a dictatorship from the perspective of someone returning from a “free land” and learning the rules as he went.
“I was not interested in monstrous villains – others have written the necessary books about them – but in everyday complicity: small deals in the workplace, club meetings, accidental blindness,” Kehlmann said. “And then there was the delicious novelistic temptation of the vanished film: to ‘shoot’ it on paper and let the reader watch.”
“There was the delicious novelistic temptation of a vanished film: to ‘film’ it on paper and let the reader watch,” Kehlmann said.
The book was translated into English by Ross Benjamin.
Who is Daniel Kehlmann?
Daniel Kehlmann is a German-Austrian writer. His best-selling book “The Director” is nominated for the International Booker 2026.
Known for darkly entertaining historical novels, Kehlmann is the only male author on the list.
- Measuring the world
- Me and Kaminski
- Glory
- F
- You should have left
- Tulle
Kehlmann has won numerous prizes, including the Candide Prize, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation Literary Prize, the Doderer Prize, the Kleist Prize, the WELT Literary Prize and the Thomas Mann Prize.
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International Booker 2026: Shortlist
The shortlist for the International Booker Prize 2026 was announced by the organizers on Tuesday. This year, novels by women writers about a family expelled from Iran, a French witch from the suburbs and an Albanian sworn virgin were shortlisted.
The books on this year’s list feature “unforgettable characters” and “resonate with history”, said the chair of the jury, British author Natasha Brown.
These six books were selected from a long list of 13:
TitleAuthorTranslatorOriginal languageThe nights are quiet in TehranShida BazyarRuth MartinGermanShe who remainsRené Karabash, Izidora Angel, BulgariaDirectorDaniel Kehlmann Ross Benjamin GermanOn Earth As It Is Beneath ItAna Paula MaiaPadma Viswanathan PortugalWitchMarie NDiayeJordan StumpFrenchTaiwan travelogueYáng Shuāng-zǐLin KingMandarin Chinese
About International Booker
The prestigious prize recognizes works of fiction from around the world that have been translated into English.
The 2026 Booker International Prize will be awarded at a ceremony at London’s Tate Modern on 19 May. The £50,000 ($62,000) prize is split equally between the author and the translator.
In its current form, the prize has been awarded for the 10th year. Organizers say the prize gives authors a significant boost in profile and sales.
