Jurek Becker

Jakob the Liar is a 1999 American war comedy-drama film directed by Peter Kassovitz and starring Robin Williams, Alan Arkin, Liev Schreiber, Hannah Taylor-Gordon, and Bob Balaban. The movie is set in 1944 in a ghetto in German-occupied Poland during the Holocaust and is based on the book by Jurek Becker about World War II Jewish ghetto life. It is a remake of the East German DEFA film Jakob der Lugner from 1975.

Jacob the Liar is a novel written by the East German Jewish author Jurek Becker published in 1969. The German original title is Jakob der Lugner. Becker was awarded the Heinrich-Mann Prize (1971) and the Charles Veillon Prize (1971) after the publication of his bestseller.