Hesse, << HEHS uh, >> Hermann (1877-1962), a German novelist and poet, won the 1946 Nobel Prize in literature. Hesse’s view of life was influenced by the German romantic writers and the Hindu philosophy of India. His novels concern the spiritual loneliness of people in a mechanized urban society, the conflict between intellect and sensuality, and the problems of people outside society, such as artists and vagabonds. The stories express a yearning for a synthesis between human sensual and intellectual capacities.
Hesse’s best-known fiction includes Knulp (1915), Demian (1919), Siddhartha (1922), Steppenwolf (1927), Narcissus and Goldmund (1930, also called Death and the Lover), and Magister Ludi (1943, also called The Glass Bead Game). Hesse’s simple, melodious poetry shows his love of nature. Like some of his novels, his poems tend to be self-conscious and sentimental.
Hesse was born on July 2, 1877, in Calw in the Black Forest. He settled in Switzerland in 1919 and became a Swiss citizen in 1923. He died on Aug. 9, 1962.
