Author Hermann Hesse Dead at 85

Aug. 9, 1962 - Hermann Hesse (pictured last year), the German-born Swiss author who won the 1946 Nobel Prize for Literature, died today of a heart attack at his home in Montagnola, near Lugano in southeastern Switzerland. He was 85 years old. Mr. Hesse was considered one of the last grand old men of European letters. He was a friend of Thomas Mann and André Gide and influenced writers such as T.S. Eliot. His own work, both prose and verse, reflected the thinking of such diverse Europeans as Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Kafka, Joyce, and Kierkegaard. Mr. Hesse was best known for a savage indictment of bourgeois society called “Steppenwolf,” published in 1927. Using tools of psychoanalysis, the author probed the “two souls” of the demonic, lawless protagonist, Harry Haller. In “Siddhartha,” a novella published in 1922, Mr. Hesse explored Asian religious concepts that were to remain central in his writing until his death. Mr. Hesse once said, “I know that I am not a storyteller, but it is my desire to write about the lonesome individual.” His works were banned in Germany by the Nazis. During World War II, Mr. Hesse wrote several works attacking Hitler. #literature #literaturequotes #1960s #books #greatbooks #OTD