Siddhartha

Nobel Prize in Literature 1946

German novelist and poet Hermann Hesse was born in 1877 in the small town of Calw, on the edge of the Black Forest in the state of Württemberg. His parents hoped that Hesse would follow the family tradition in theology, so they sent him to the Protestant seminary in Maulbronn in 1891, but he was eventually expelled. Transferring to a secular school, the young Hermann again proved maladjusted and abandoned his studies.
Hermann Hesse then began working, first as a watchmaker's apprentice, then as a clerk in a bookstore, as a mechanic, and later as a bookseller in Tübingen, where he joined a literary circle, "Le Petit Cénacle," which not only greatly fostered Hesse's voracious appetite for reading but also determined his vocation for writing. Thus, in 1899, Hermann Hesse published his first works. Romantic Lieder and Eine Stunde Hinter Mitternacht , volumes of poetry for young people.
After the appearance of Peter CamenzindIn 1904, Hesse became a full-time writer. In the work, reflecting Jean-Jacques Rousseau's ideal of a return to Nature, the protagonist decides to leave the big city to live like Saint Francis of Assisi. The book was very well received by the public.
In 1911, Hermann Hesse spent four months visiting India, a trip that disappointed him but, conversely, motivated him to study Eastern religions. The following year, the writer and his family camped in Switzerland. During this period, not only did his wife begin to show signs of mental instability, but one of his children became seriously ill. In the novel Rosshalde (1914), the author explores the question of whether or not marriage is convenient for artists, basically doing an introspection of his personal problems.
During the First World War, Hesse demonstrated his opposition to the militarism and nationalism prevalent at the time, and from his residence in Switzerland, he sought to defend the interests and improve the conditions of prisoners of war, which earned him the reputation of being considered a traitor by his compatriots.
After the war ended, Hesse published his first major successful novel, Demian (1919). The work, of a Faustian character, reflected the writer's growing interest in Carl Jung's psychoanalysis, and was praised by Thomas Mann. Signed in the first editions with the name of its narrator, Emil Sinclair, Hesse would eventually confess his authorship. Leaving his family in 1919, Hermann Hesse moved to southern Switzerland, to Montagnola, where he dedicated himself to writing. Siddhartha (1922), a novel heavily influenced by Hindu and Chinese cultures, recreating the early life of Buddha, tells the story of a Brahmin's son who rebels against his father's teachings and traditions until he eventually finds spiritual enlightenment. The work, translated into English in the 1950s, definitively marked the American Beat Generation.
1919 was also the year Hesse met Ruth Wenger, daughter of the Swiss writer Lisa Wenger and much younger than the author. The writer renounced his German citizenship in 1923, opting for Swiss citizenship instead. Divorcing his first wife, Maria Bernoulli, he married Ruth Wenger in 1924, and the marriage lasted only a few months. This experience is said to have resulted in one of his most important works. Der Steppenwolf (1927). In the novel, the protagonist Harry Haller confronts his midlife crisis with the choice between a life of action or contemplation, a duality that ends up characterizing the entire structure of the work.
In 1931 he married again, this time to Ninon Doldin, of Jewish origin. At only fourteen years old, in 1909, he had sent a letter to Hermann Hesse, and since then their correspondence had not ceased. Meeting accidentally in 1926, they went to live together at the Bodmer House, Ninon being separated from the painter B. F. Doldin, and Hesse's life became more serene.
During the National Socialist regime, Hermann Hesse's books continued to be published, having been protected by a secret circular from Joseph Goebbels in 1937. When he wrote for the pro-regime newspaper Frankfurter Zeitung, Jewish refugees in France accused him of supporting the Nazis. Although Hesse never openly opposed the National Socialist regime, he sought to help political refugees. In 1943, the work was finally published. The Glass Player's Game, on which Hesse had begun working in 1931. Having sent the manuscript to Berlin in 1942, it was refused publication and the author was placed on the National Socialist Blacklist. Nevertheless, the work would earn him the Nobel Prize in 1946.
After being awarded the prestigious prize, Hesse did not publish any more works of significant caliber. Between 1945 and 1962 he wrote about fifty poems and thirty-two articles for Swiss newspapers.
On August 9, 1962, Hermann Hesse passed away in his sleep at the age of eighty-five, a victim of a cerebral hemorrhage.