horror ... with great confidence and so forms a significant twist in the tapestry of contemporary German-language literature".Imperium has been translated into over 25 different languages, including English. Style and appearance Kracht's novels are pastiche; a playful blend of influences appropriated from areas of "high" and "low" culture. Thus, Kracht's writings contain alienating references to other works, including Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain, the subtly ironic travel journals of Robert Byron, and Hergé's The Adventures of Tintin series. Furthermore, the ligne claire drawing style is used for the illustrations (by Dominik Monheim) in the first edition of Ferien für immer (1998), as well as for Der gelbe Bleistift (by Hugo Pratt) and the original cover of Imperium. Many of Hugo Pratt´s characters, in turn, make their appearance in Imperium. Kracht has attested that a writer also "always performs being a writer". His performance is persuasive and has successfully seduced reviewers into sometimes overlooking the distinction between the author and narrator to erroneously identify Kracht as the autobiographical protagonist of his debut novel Faserland. He has sometimes been a controversial figure in modern German-language literature. The meaning of his pronouncements in interviews is not always obvious; his description of the Taliban leader Mullah Omar (and by implication the Taliban itself) as "camp" should perhaps be taken with a pinch of salt: in this case moral values take second place after media aesthetics. A similar principle applies to Kracht's foreword to the 2006 illustrated book Die totale Erinnerung (published with Feral House as The Ministry of Truth in the U.S.), in which Kim Jong-Il's North Korea is referred to as a gigantic simulation, whereas his apparent ignorance of actual suffering in North Korea upset some commentators. Stage adaptations and screenplay Since 2004 a stage version of the novel 1979, directed by Matthias Hartmann, has been performed in theatres in Zurich, Bochum and Hannover. In 2009 the play was shown at the Burgtheater in Vienna, while a stage version of Ich werde hier sein im Sonnenschein und im Schatten has been performed at theatres in Basel, Stuttgart and Berlin. In 2015, a dramatized version of Imperium premiered at Thalia Theater in Hamburg, Germany. A stage version of The Dead (Kracht novel) premiered in December 2017 at Bern Theatre in Switzerland`s capital. Kracht co-authored the screenplay for the 2013 film Finsterworld, which was directed by his wife Frauke Finsterwalder. The couple also co-wrote the screenplay