Thomas Mann, Nobel Prize in Literature, 1929

Thomas Mann (6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, 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..."

"...Mann was born Paul Thomas Mann in Lübeck, Germany, and was the second son of Thomas Johann Heinrich Mann (a senator and a grain merchant), and his wife Júlia da Silva Bruhns (a Brazilian of partial German ancestry who emigrated to Germany when seven years old). His mother was Roman Catholic, but Mann was baptised into his father's Lutheran faith. Mann's father died in 1891, and his trading firm was liquidated. The family subsequently moved to Munich..."

"...In 1905, he married Katia Pringsheim, daughter of a prominent, secular Jewish intellectual family. She later joined the Lutheran faith of her husband. The couple had six children..."

Children with Birth and Death Dates:

1. Erika 9 November 1905 27 August 1969
2. Klaus 18 November 1906 21 May 1949
3. Angelus Gottfried Thomas "Golo" 29 March 1909 7 April 1994
4. Monika 7 June 1910 17 March 1992
5. Elisabeth 24 April 1918 8 February 2002
6. Michael 21 April 1919 1 January 1977

"...Mann emigrated to Küsnacht, near Zurich, Switzerland, but received Czechoslovak citizenship and a passport in 1936. He then emigrated to the United States in 1939, where he taught at Princeton University..."

"...In 1942, the Mann family moved to Pacific Palisades, in west Los Angeles, California, where they lived until after the end of World War II. On 23 June 1944 Thomas Mann was naturalized as a citizen of the United States. In 1952, he returned to Europe, to live in Kilchberg, near Zurich, Switzerland. He never again lived in Germany, though he regularly traveled there..."

"...In 1955, he died of atherosclerosis in a hospital in Zurich and was buried in Kilchberg..."

"...Thomas Mann's works were first translated into English by H. T. Lowe-Porter beginning in 1924. Mann was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929, principally in recognition of his popular achievement with the epic Buddenbrooks (1901), The Magic Mountain (Der Zauberberg 1924), and his numerous short stories..."

See also: The Nobel Prize in Literature 1929, Thomas Mann