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Cornelia Funke’s Reckless to become a musical

Image: Cornelia Funke's Reckless Reckless, the new fantasy novel from best-selling author Cornelia Funke, is to premiere as a musical just six weeks after the book’s world release, the Dresden Theatre in Germany has announced.

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Publishers say they will print 1 million copies of Reckless for a simultaneous book launch in the United States, Britain and Germany on September 14.

The Inkheart trilogy and other Funke books for young readers have appeared in 40 languages and have sold 100 million copies.

Funke, who lives in California, has sold more books than any other living writer in German. She is often compared to JK Rowling, the British author for children who has many adult readers.

The music for the stage version of Reckless was composed by Polarkreis 18, a German band that mixes pop, electronic and experimental music.

The German author has revealed very little of what the book is about, except that it is about the brothers Jacob and Will Reckless, who are based on the German Brothers Grimm. She says she is drawing her own illustrations, one per chapter, for the novel.

She sold the theatre rights separately from the film rights, allowing a live version to be staged before any movie adaptation. The stage version has been co-authored by Robert Koall of Germany, who also worked on stage versions of the Inkheart series.

He described the story as being about "a race against time."

It will premiere in Dresden on October 29, said the state-funded theatre company, adding that it had only one galley of the book, which is marked secret and locked up from prying eyes.

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