Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann was born in Lübeck in 1875. The son of a wealthy merchant, he attended strict schools and joined an insurance company in Munich at the age of nineteen. There, he secretly wrote his first short story, and shortly thereafter left his position to study art and literature at the university in the same city. His life was henceforth dedicated to writing. His major works, such as "Buddenbrooks," "Death in Venice," and "The Magic Mountain," earned him the Nobel Prize in 1929. In 1933, Thomas Mann left for Switzerland, and from there to the United States, where he settled, first in Princeton, New Jersey, and later in California, where he wrote "Doctor Faustus." In 1952, he returned to Switzerland, where he passed away in 1955.