Writing a biographical novel about one of modern European history’s most skilled liars – whose fame rests almost entirely on his own self-crafted stories – is, to say the least, a difficult task.
So it’s not surprising that Jean-Noël Orengo has approached this challenge by making his superb novel about Nazi architect and war criminal Albert Speer, You Are the Führer’s Unrequited Love, a work of metahistory. This means the book, translated from French by David Watson, is not just a historical narrative – it also reflects on the act of storytelling itself. Orengo examines the who, when and especially the why of the stories we tell about history.
For a decade Speer enjoyed a unique position as courtier and protege to Adolf Hitler. He may in fact have been the closest Hitler ever came to an actual friend – or, as Orengo’s title suggests, even a romantic partner in some strange, asexual way.
