Demian
The Story of Emil Sinclair’s Youth
Hermann Hesse 1919
This coming-of-age novel follows Emil Sinclair as his friendship with Max Demian unsettles his childhood beliefs. Demian's unexpected reading of the biblical story of Cain gives Sinclair a troubling new view of good and evil.
190 pages 3h 41m reading time
- One of the best-known novels about growing up, and a key work of German literature after World War I.
- Argues that becoming yourself means questioning the rules you were raised with, even when that path is lonely and painful.
- Imagines a god named Abraxas who holds both good and evil, an idea drawn from ancient religious writings that sets the book's search for a fuller kind of faith.
- Spoke so strongly to young Germans returning from the war that it became a guiding book for a generation, and Thomas Mann later compared its effect to that of Goethe's "The Sorrows of Young Werther."
- Found a second wave of young readers in the 1960s counterculture, helping make Hesse one of the most widely read German authors in the world.
Published under a false name
Hesse first released it as the work of Emil Sinclair, the narrator, hiding that he wrote it.
A prize given back
It won the Fontane Prize, an award meant for new writers, which Hesse returned once his authorship was known.
Unmasked by a critic
The Swiss critic Eduard Korrodi studied the writing style and worked out that Hesse was the real author.
Shaped by therapy
Hesse wrote it quickly in 1917, after talk therapy with Josef Lang, a follower of Carl Jung.
Translated from German by N. H. Priday