This superb new translation of "Death in Venice" and six otherstories by Thomas Mann is a tour de force, sure to establish itselfas the definitive text for English-speaking readers. The sevenstories in this collection represent the early part of Mann'sliterary career, beginning with work he produced in 1896 at the ageof 21, and culminating in his most celebrated novella, "Death inVenice" (1912). Although Mann continued working until the end ofhis life in 1955, he despaired of ever matching the quality of hisearly writing. In these stories, Mann began to grapple with themesthat were to recur throughout his work. In the first piece, "LittleHerr Friedemann," as in "Death in Venice," a character's carefullystructured way of life is suddenly and unexpectedly threatened bysexual passion. In "Gladius Dei," puritanical intellect clasheswith beauty. In "Tristan," Mann presents an ironic and comicalaccount of tension between an artist and bourgeois society. Allseven of these stories are accomplished and memorable, but it is"Death in Venice" that truly forms the centerpiece of thecollection. Themes that weave their way through many of the shorterstories come to a climax in this novella, out century's mosthaunting, magnificent tale of art and self-destruction.
【作者简介】
Thomas Mann was born in 1875 in Germany. He was only twenty-fivewhen his first novel, Buddenbrooks, was published. In 1924,The Magic Mountain was published, and, five years later,Mann was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Following the riseof the Nazis to power, he left Germany for good in 1933 to live inSwitzerland and then in California, where he wrote DoctorFaustus (first published in the United States in 1948). ThomasMann died in 1955.
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