WRITER

Thomas Mann

1875 - 1955

Thomas Mann

Paul Thomas Mann (UK: MAN, US: MAHN; German pronunciation: [ˈtoːmas ˈman] ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas are noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Thomas Mann has received more than 3,609,989 page views. His biography is available in 117 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 113 in 2019). Thomas Mann is the 53rd most popular writer (up from 61st in 2019), the 37th most popular biography from Germany (up from 50th in 2019) and the 5th most popular German Writer.

Thomas Mann is most famous for his novel "The Magic Mountain."

Memorability Metrics

3.6M
Page Views (PV)
80.10
Historical Popularity Index (HPI)
117
Languages Editions (L)
11.72
Effective Languages (L*)
4.12
Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

Doctor Faustus

Fiction, History, Composers

A new translation of a 1948 novel by a German writer based on the Faust legend. The protagonist is Adrian Leverkuhn, a musical genius who trades his body and soul to the devil in exchange for 24 years of triumph as the world's greatest composer.

1947

Zauberberg

Fiction, Sanatoriums, German fiction

1927

Königliche Hoheit

Fiction, German fiction, Courts and courtiers

1909

Lotte in Weimar

Fiction, German Authors, Goethe in fiction, drama, poetry

1939

Buddenbrooks

Fiction, Families, Family

This epic, sub-titled ‘The Decline of a Family’, was Mann’s first novel, published in 1901. It traces the gradual downfall of a wealthy family over four generations in the city of Lubeck. The novel is widely regarded as a classic portrait of bourgeois society and family life in 19th century Germany.

1909

Joseph und seine Brüder

Bible, Fiction, History of Biblical events

This remarkable new translation of the Nobel Prize-winner’s great masterpiece is a major literary event. Thomas Mann regarded his monumental retelling of the biblical story of Joseph as his magnum opus. He conceived of the four parts–The Stories of Jacob, Young Joseph, Joseph in Egypt, and Joseph the Provider–as a unified narrative, a “mythological novel” of Joseph’s fall into slavery and his rise to be lord over Egypt. Deploying lavish, persuasive detail, Mann conjures for us the world of patriarchs and pharaohs, the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Palestine, and the universal force of human love in all its beauty, desperation, absurdity, and pain. The result is a brilliant amalgam of humor, emotion, psychological insight, and epic grandeur. Now the award-winning translator John E. Woods gives us a definitive new English version of <i>Joseph and His Brothers</i> that is worthy of Mann’s achievement, revealing the novel’s exuberant polyphony of ancient and modern voices, a rich music that is by turns elegant, coarse, and sublime. --front flap

1934

Doctor Faustus

Fiction, History, Composers

1947

Der Zauberberg

Fiction, Sanatoriums, German fiction

One of the most influential and celebrated German works of the 20th century has been newly rendered in English by Woods, twice winner of the PEN Translation Prize. First published in 1929, Mann's novel tells the story of Hans Castorp, a modern everyman who spends seven years in an Alpine sanatorium for tuberculosis patients, finally leaving to become a soldier in World War I. Isolated from the concerns of the everyday world, he is exposed to the wide range of ideas that shaped a world on the verge of explosion. Considering what was to follow, the most poignant moment comes when Naphta, a Jewish-born Jesuit, defends the use of terror and the taking of life for the sake of an all-encompassing idea. Woods's work reads more naturally than the original translation, which, while faithful to the German, was stiff and forbidding. A necessary addition to any fiction collection.

1924

Joseph und seine Brüder

Bible, Fiction, History of Biblical events

1934

Lotte in Weimar

Fiction, German Authors, Goethe in fiction, drama, poetry

1939

Buddenbrooks

Fiction, Families, Family

1909

Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull

Fiction, German fiction, German language