A NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER in Fiction. Booker Prize–winning novelist Fitzgerald's crowning literary work centers on the 18th-century German poet and philosopher Novalis and his love for the simple Sophie.

The Blue Flower is set in the age of Goethe among the small towns and great universities of 18th-century Germany. It tells the true story of Friedrich von Hardenberg, a passionate, impetuous student of philosophy who will later gain fame as the romantic poet Novalis. Fritz seeks his father's permission to wed his "heart's heart," his "spirit's guide"—a plain, simple child named Sophievon Kühn. It is an attachment that shocks his family and friends. Their brilliant young Fritz, betrothed to a twelve-year-old dullard? How can this be?

Their rationality of love, the transfiguration of the commonplace, the clarity of purpose that comes with knowing one's own fate— these are the themes of this beguiling novel, themes treated with a mix of wit, grace, and mischievous humor.

“An extraordinary imagining . . . an original masterpiece.”—Financial Times

"An astonishing book...Fitzgerald's greatest triumph."—New York Times Book Review