Hermann Hesse is the widest-read German-language Author
outside Germany
During the past thirty years, Hermann Hesse's books have met with a response unprecedented in the history of German literature. UNESCO's "Index translatorum" lists Hesse as the most widely translated German-language writer since the Grimm brothers. More than 100 million copies of his books, which have been translated into some 60 languages, have been printed worldwide; around a quarter of these are German-language editions. Even today, the Suhrkamp publishing house sells up to 30000 Hesse books a month, according to Siegfried Unseld, head of Suhrkamp, who discovered his love of literature through Hesse's "Siddhartha" and who did his doctorate on Hermann Hesse.
Hermann Hesse's undiminished popularity among literature lovers is not only reflected in sales figures but was also substantiated by a survey carried out by the Vienna publisher, Fritz Panzer and published by the German weekly magazine "Stern" in October 2001. Over a period of several years, Panzer interviewed people from all walks of life, ranging from petrol pump attendants to members of parliament. The question he asked was: "Which were the three most important books in your life?" The survey produced a list of around 1000 titles. The undisputed top position, ranking first even before the Bible, belonged to Hermann Hesse's "Siddhartha", a fictional story of the life of Buddha. But that is not all, Hesse also ranks third with "Steppenwolf" and seventh with "Narcissus and Goldmund". And since Fritz Panzer asked the age of his interviewees, he found out: Hesse is mainly read in the age group of between 20 and 30 years of age.
A similar result came out of a survey carried out by "Westdeutscher Rundfunk" (West German Radio), in which the audience was asked to name their favourite poem. 3000 people participated in the survey, and Hermann Hesse's poem "Stufen" (Stages) was chosen as absolute favourite, followed by Rilke's "Herbsttag" and Erich Fried's "Was ist".
For decades, Hesse and his work have held great fascination and appeal for younger generations. Young people in particular regard his work as an invitation to seek their own identity and deliberate on the ever topical question of the meaning of life. For the youth movement of the 60's, for example, Hesse became a real literary idol. His search for the common and uniting ethical principles of the various cultures and religions is of particular interest to many. In an age in which confusion is on the increase, ethics, aesthetics, tradition and modern thinking unite in Hesse's work with an optimistic global view of the world. Hesse's international outlook, which integrates quite different cultures and confessions, promotes the common ground between civilisations, which in this day and age of globalisation is indispensable. He has millions of readers particularly in America and Asia.
Some of Hermann Hesse’s best-known titles:
- Peter Camenzind (1904)
- Beneath the Wheel ( 1906)
- Rosshalde (1914)
- Knulp (1915)
- Youth is Beautiful (1916)
- Demian (1919)
- Klingsor‘s Last Summer (1920)
- Siddhartha (1922)
- Steppenwolf (1927)
- Narcissus and Goldmund (1930)
- The Journey to the East (1932)
- The Glass Bead Game (1943)
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