Educated at a Lubeck gymnasium and the University of Munich, Mann worked for the South German Fire Insurance Company for two years before embarking on a writing career. Mann's older brother Heinrich also became a renowned author. He published his first short story, Little Herr Friedemann in 1898. In 1901, he published his masterpiece, the family epic Buddenbrooks, which won international critical acclaim. He married the Jewish Katia Pringsheim in 1905 and they had 6 children. During the First World War, Mann supported the Kaiser and attacked the anti-war liberals, but following the war his views became more democratic and he helped to promote the Weimar Republic. In 1924, he published The Magic Mountain, another extremely successful work and one which was particularly instrumental in his receipt of the Nobel Prize in Literature for 1929. In 1930, he gave a public address denouncing Nazism and sympathizing with the socialists and communists. In 1933, Mann and his wife were vacationing in Switzerland when the Nazis came to power and they never returned to live in Germany. Mann's books were banned in Germany and were among the many that were burned by the Nazis. In 1939, he emigrated to the United States and taught at Princeton University for three years before moving to California. In 1944 he became a naturalized citizen. The family returned to Switzerland in 1952 and Mann died there of arteriosclerosis in 1955. Mann's many works include Tristan (1902), Death in Venice (1912), The Problem of Freedom (1937), This Peace (1938), Joseph and His Brothers (1933-43), Lotte in Weimar (1939), Doctor Faustus (1947) and The Holy Sinner (1951). |
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