The Magic Mountain

With this dizzyingly rich novel of ideas, Thomas Mann rose to the front ranks of the great modern novelists, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929. The Magic Mountain takes place in an exclusive tuberculosis sanatorium in the Swiss Alps-a community devoted to sickness that serves as a fictional microcosm for Europe in the days before the First World War. To this hermetic and otherworldly realm comes Hans Castorp, an "ordinary young man" who arrives for a short visit and ends up staying for seven years, during which he succumbs both to the lure of eros and to the intoxication of ideas.

About Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann (1875-1955) is widely regarded as the greatest German novelist of the twentieth century. His first novel, Buddenbrooks, was a huge success and led to a Nobel Prize in Literature. However, when the Nazis came to power, his works were blacklisted and burned and Mann was stripped of his citizenship. He spent the latter part of his life in exile in the United States and Switzerland. His other major novels include The Magic Mountain, Doctor Faustus and Joseph and His Brothers.
Details