Icon of 20th-century literature, Noble prize-winner, celebrated genius – and about as unhappy as it’s possible to be. Thomas Mann loves and yet he cannot love, blocked as he is by the conventions of the age. What a source of inspiration for some of the greatest works of literature – and what a thoroughly miserable life. His early global success with “Buddenbrooks” open up door after door – all the way to the White House. No German voice denounces Hitler as vocally as his, no other writer garners as many accolades as he does. His wife Katia and his six children huddle around him like a cocoon. And yet, he is only ever one wrong-footed step away from tumbling into the abyss.

Another biography of Thomas Mann? Surprisingly, the answer is a resounding yes. Tilmann Lahme consistently and convincingly traces the Nobel Prize-winning author’s work back to Mann’s lifelong preoccupation with his sexuality. Much of this theme has been touched on before, which makes it all the more remarkable that Lahme returns to a wide range of sources – some long known, yet never previously examined in such depth. Added to this is the striking elegance with which the book is written. Lahme maintains an exemplary balance between empathetic closeness and critical distance, thereby creating a comprehensive portrait of the most dazzling German writer of the twentieth century.

Tilmann Lahme, born in 1974, is a literary historian and author. Lahme studied German, History and Philosophy and held the professorship for media history and critical journalism at Leuphana University in Lüneburg. Numerous publications about the Mann family, including a highly acclaimed biography of Golo Mann and the bestseller “The Manns. History of a family.”