This novel is based on the story of the enigmatic story of Caspar Hauser, a mysterious young man who appeared on the streets of Nuremburg one day in 1828. He had apparently been kept imprisoned in a small cell for as long as he could remember. For a few years he was a national sensation, with his other worldly attitudes and snippets from his horrible childhood. There was speculation that he might be an unwanted aristocratic heir, though others thought he was a charlatan. He was murdered by an unknown person in December 1833. While the mystery of Caspar Hauser is fairly well known and intriguing, I thought this novel was overlong and the machinations of the various guardians of the young man were at times tedious and somewhat confusing. Though much of the novel is told from Caspar's point of view, his origins and motives are studiedly ambiguous and we are not clear what is real and what is his genuine or self-induced fantasy. ( )

Después del cautiverio de toda una vida en una celda de prisión, Caspar Hauser, que entonces apenas tenía diecisiete años, se tropezó con una plaza de Nuremberg para comenzar una vida entre los seres humanos. Su extraña inocencia y el misterio de sus orígenes inmediatamente despertaron la curiosidad del público.

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