THOMAS MANN (1947)

Novelist whose works, preoccupied with the relationships of art and spirit to reality, reveal a sensitive and complex mind confronting the social and political upheavals of his time.

The German bourgeoisie and the problems of the creative artist provide the theme of Mann´s early novels and stories Buddenbrooks (1900), Tonio Kröger (1903) and Death in Venice (1912).

World War I led him to an authoritarian political outlook but that was modified by the time he published The Magic Mountain (1942) and the advent of Hitler confirmed his hostility to Fascism.

Exiled from Germany he settled in the United States taking U.S. citizenship in 1944.

His later works include The Tales of Jacob (1933), Lotte in Weimar (1939) Doctor Faustus (1947), The Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man (1954) and essays on literary, political and philosophical subjects.