Thomas Mann

Paul Thomas Mann (6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German author and social critic. He received the 1929 Nobel Prize for Literature. His work is characterized by a heavy emphasis on the psychology of his characters, many of which are artists and academics. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Mann fled to Switzerland and later to the United States. After World War II he eventually moved back to Switzerland, where he died in 1955.

Mann is best known for his epic novel Buddenbrooks (1901) relating the lives of three generations of a German family of merchants, his philosophical novel The Magic Mountain (Der Zauberberg, 1924), and the novella Death in Venice (Der Tod in Venedig, 1912), the semi-autobiographical story of an elderly author who becomes attracted to a 14-year old boy.

He was the younger brother of author Heinrich Mann and father of six children, three of which—Erika, Klaus, and Golo, became successful authors in their own right.