Novel
Demian
Hermann Hesse · 1919
Synopsis
Emil Sinclair, son of a well-off family, grows up between the bright, sheltered world of his parents and another, dark world that draws him. At ten, to impress some schoolmates, he invents a theft of apples; Franz Kromer, an older boy, threatens to denounce him and blackmails him. A new pupil, Max Demian, delivers him from this and offers him an entirely different reading of the story of Cain and Abel.
Context
Written in three weeks in the autumn of 1917, during psychotherapy with Josef Bernhard Lang, a pupil of Jung, the novel appeared in 1919 from S. Fischer under the name of its narrator, Emil Sinclair. The Fontane Prize was awarded to the supposed newcomer, and the author was unmasked only in 1920, through analysis of his style; his name appeared only from the fourth edition. Thomas Mann was enthusiastic about it from its publication.
Who it is for
A short novel, told in the first person by Sinclair as an adult, stage by stage.
Prizes and reception
Welcomed with fervour by the young people returned from the war, it enjoyed a second success in the sixties, when Hesse's work won a worldwide readership.