Introduction: From Outsider to Global Player: Hermann Hesse in the Twenty-First Century

Summary

More than thirty years have passed since the last Hesse Companion, edited by Anna Otten, was published. The book was a response to Hesse’s phenomenal popularity in the United States following his discovery by the hippie generation in the 1960s. The world has changed beyond recognition since those heady days when self-discovery had become the ultimate goal for a generation “born to be wild.” Today, the young men and women who found inspiration in Hesse’s works are reaching retirement age. Their idealism has become jaded, their legacy uncertain. But what about their “guru”? Is Hesse a writer for aging hippies or is he still relevant for a new generation of readers? These are the questions that this new Hesse Companion sets out to answer.

There is no doubt that the works of Hermann Hesse continue to be immensely popular. With more than 100 million copies of his books sold worldwide, he is one of the best selling German-language authors, and, more significantly, the most widely translated German-language author. His major texts Demian, Siddhartha, Der Steppenwolf, Narziß und Goldmund, and Das Glasperlenspiel have been translated into more than sixty languages. There are Hesse societies in Korea and Hungary, Hesse museums, regular events such as the Hesse Colloquium in Calw and the Hesse Tage in Sils-Maria, a Hesse yearbook and several Web sites. Among his dedicated followers, he enjoys fierce loyalty. However, because of his great popular appeal and his message “Werde du selbst” [Become yourself], Hermann Hesse provokes strong reactions. Academics and literary critics in his birth country were long ill at ease with him, and some have remained so well into the new millennium, though more of them have been willing to treat him as a serious writer in recent years. Self-effacing and private by nature, Hesse was certainly not considered to be in the same league as his contemporary Thomas Mann. Both won the Nobel Prize for Literature and had equally appreciative audiences, but it was Mann who insisted “Wo ich bin, ist Deutschland” and cultivated his celebrity status, while Hesse spent the latter half of his long life in Ticino, the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, carefully avoiding both the media and any association with “official” Germany.

The view that Hesse is somehow not worthy of “serious” literary engagement is rapidly changing, as a new critical edition of his works, a reevaluation of his political thought in the context of global environmental developments, and an appreciation of his seemingly simple yet profound message give rise to new research around the world.