The directory «Plots»

Hesse Herman
(1877–1962)

German novelist and poet. A pacifist, he went to Switzerland at the outbreak of World War I and became (1923) a Swiss citizen. The spiritual loneliness of the artist and his estrangement from the modern world are recurring themes in Hesse’s works. His novels, increasingly psychoanalytic and symbolic, include Peter Camenzind (1904, tr. 1961), Unterm Rad (1906, tr. Beneath the Wheel, 1968), Rosshalde (1914, tr. 1970), and Demian (1919, tr. 1923, 1958). One of his most famous and most complex novels, Steppenwolf (1927, tr. 1929, 1963), treats the dual nature of humanity. This theme is also pursued in Narziss und Goldmund (1930, tr. Death and the Lover, 1932; Narcissus and Goldmund, 1968).

Among his other works are Das Glasperlenspiel (1943, tr. The Glass Bead Game, 1970) and Siddhartha (1922, tr. 1951), a novella reflecting Hesse’s interest in Asian mysticism. The gentle, lyric quality of Hesse’s prose is shared by the wistful, lamenting verse of his Gedichte (1922, tr. Poems, 1970) and Trost der Nacht (1929). His essays are collected in Betrachtungen (1928) and Krieg und Frieden (1946, tr. If the War Goes on… , 1970). Hesse was awarded the 1946 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Comoren Islands, 1977, Nobel prize winners

Gabon, 1995, Hermann Hesse

German Federal Republic, 1978, Gerhart Hauptmann, Hermann Hesse, Thomas Mann

German Federal Republic, 2002, Hermann Hesse

Ghana, 1995, Hermann Hesse

Guinea, 2009, Writers

Liechtenstein, 1981, Hermann Hesse

Macedonia, 2001, Nobel, Names of writers

Paraguay, 1977, Medal of Nobel prize of Literature

St. Vincent, 1995, Hermann Hesse

Switzerland, 1979, Hermann Hesse

German Federal Republic, 1977.07.28, Calw. Hermann Hesse

German Federal Republic, 2002.07.04, Berlin. Hermann Hesse

German Federal Republic, 2002.07.04, Bonn. Hermann Hesse