Question of Balance

German novelist, short story author, social commentator, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature winner Paul Thomas Mann lived from 6 June 1875 to 12 August 1955. His sardonic and highly symbolic epic novels and novellas are renowned for their understanding of the minds of artists and intellectuals. He incorporated modernized versions of German and Biblical tales, as well as concepts from Friedrich Nietzsche, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in his analysis and critique of the European and German spirit. In his first book, Buddenbrooks, Mann-a member of the Hanseatic Mann family-depicted his clan and social status. Three of Heinrich Mann's six children, Erika Mann, Klaus Mann, and Golo Mann, all went on to become well-known German writers, as did his older brother Heinrich Mann, a radical writer. Mann escaped to Switzerland in 1933, the year Adolf Hitler took office. He relocated to the United States in 1939 when World War II began, then went back to Switzerland in 1952. One of the most well-known authors of the so-called Exilliteratur, German writing produced in exile by individuals opposed to the Hitler government, is Mann.