Heran Hesse

Herman Hesse was born on july 2nd, 1877 in the black forest town of Calw, in the German state of Wuttenberg to the Baltic missionary Johannes Hesse (1847- 1916) and Marie Gundert (1842-1902), the elder daughter of the famous indologist and missionary Herman Gundert. His father was born a Russian citizen in Weissenstein, Estonia and his mother was born in Talatscheri, India. From 1881to 1886, Herman Hesse lived with his parents in Basle, where his father taught at the Basle Missionary Society. In 1886, the family returned to calw.

His parents expected him to follow the family tradition in theology – they had served as missionaries in India. Hesse entered the protestant seminary at Maulbronn in 1891, but he was expelled from the school. After unhappy experiences at a secular school, hesse left his studies.

In 1895, Hesse began to train as an apprentice book dealer in Tübingen. He devoted his spare time in the evening hours and on Sundays to writing poetry.

From 1914 - 1918, Hesse went through difficult times: he realized, that his marriage was in trouble. Fighting national fanaticism, Hesse called for a return to humanity and reason. After separation from his wife in 1919, Hesse moved to Montagnola/ Ticino. Eventually during the summer of 1923 their marriage ended but hesse remarried to Ruth Wenger in 1924. This marriage lasted only for four years. Hesse’s breakthrough novel was Demian which was published in 1919, which featured a story of a man who was torn between his orderly bourgeois existence and chaotic world of sensuality. Hesse’s demian dealt with the problem and experience of change. From 1922 to 1927, Hesse was extremely productive because he wrote many novels during this period like Siddartha which was on the early life of Gautama Buddha, a Brahman son rebels against his father’s teaching and traditions, Steppenwolf in which the protagonist, harry haller goes through his mid-life crisis and must chose between life of action and contemplation and Narcissus and Goldmund which was a pseudomedieval tale about an abbot and his wordly pupil, both in search of the Great Mother.

In 1903, hesse met a lady named Maria Bernoulli. She was from a prominent family in Basle. In the summer of 1904, he married her and moved with her to Gaienhofen at Lake Constance. Hesse spent eight years in Gaienhofen. This is where Hesse spent some of his most successful years – as far as his private life and his literary career are co

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