A haunting novella, Death in Venice tells the story of a man who falls into foolish love, only to reap his own ruin. Gustav von Aschenbach, a dignified but lonely writer in the twilight of his life, is enjoying a Venetian vacation when he notices the taut, lean figure of a Polish boy. His name is Tadzio—and he embodies the sleek perfection of youth. Aschenbach finds himself completely and hopelessly obsessed with this ideal. Death in Venice brims with mythical imagery, exploring the themes of beauty and decay, passion and pestilence. This translation of Nobel laureate Thomas Mann’s work by Jefferson S. Chase includes an additional novella, Tonio Kröger, and the short stories “Tristan,” “Man and Dog: An Idyll,” “Hour of Hardship,” “Tobias Mindernickel,” and “The Child Prodigy.” Translated and with an Introduction by Jefferson S. Chase and an Afterword by Martin Swales
Author
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information. See also: Serbian: Tomas Man Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and Nobel Prize laureate in 1929, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual. His analysis and critique of the European and German soul used modernized German and Biblical stories, as well as the ideas of Goethe, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer. His older brother was the radical writer Heinrich Mann, and three of his six children, Erika Mann, Klaus Mann and Golo Mann, also became important German writers. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Mann fled to Switzerland. When World War II broke out in 1939, he emigrated to the United States, from where he returned to Switzerland in 1952. Thomas Mann is one of the best-known exponents of the so-called Exilliteratur.
