Life
Hesse was born in Calw, Württemberg. He became a mechanic and a bookseller and continued his education by reading. He went to Switzerland and adopted Swiss nationality. In 1911 he made a protracted tour of India.
Fiction
His early novels, with their vivid portrayal of natural scenery and small-town life, are reminiscent of Gottfried Keller. They are remarkable for their musical prose and sympathetic portrayal of childhood. Siddhartha contains many autobiographical hints. It describes a young man's revolt against the orthodox religious views of his father and his growing interest in Indian mysticism. Steppenwolf is a severe indictment of Western 20th-century urban life with its lack of real culture. It is a highly controversial work, full of psychoanalytic imagery. Other novels are Unterm Rad/The Prodigy (1905), Gertrud (1910), Rosshalde (1914), Knulp (1915), Demian (1919), and Narziss und Goldmund (1930). His poetical works include Gedichte/Poems (1922, 1928-37, 1942, and 1947) and Trost der Nacht/Comfort of the Night (1929).
Other writing
His poetry, as musical as his prose, by turns sombre and idyllic, is also full of mystical imagery and is a modern echo of German Romanticism. He also wrote Briefe/Letters (1951), and essays (Krieg und Frieden/War and Peace (1946), and Beschwörungen (1955)).
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