Death in Venice

A new translation of Thomas Mann's classic tale of obsession and infatuation amid the haunting decay of Venice.

Erudite, respectable writer Gustav Aschenbach lives a life of structured routine. One day, as he puzzles over his stubborn writer's block, Aschenbach has a dazzling vision that leaves him with a restless urge to abandon his settled life and travel south to Venice.

On checking into his hotel, Aschenbach notices a young Polish boy of perfect, sculptural beauty: Tadzio. As he lingers on at the hotel, Aschenbach falls into an ever-deeper infatuation with the youth, whose curled blond hair and porcelain face fill him with rapture. Ignoring whispered warnings of a cholera outbreak in the city, Aschenbach chooses to stay close to Tadzio, his mind swirling with mad desire.

Classical in structure yet roiled by disturbing passion, Death in Venice is an enormously powerful story of one man's undoing.

'The greatest German novelist of the 20th century' - Spectator

'A monumental writer' - Sunday Telegraph

About the Author

Thomas Mann (1875-1955) was perhaps Germany's most famous twentieth-century writer. Born to a merchant family in Lübeck, Mann was preparing to enter the family business when his father suddenly died and the business was liquidated. The Manns moved to Munich, where Mann began his literary career with the epic novel Buddenbrooks (1901), which was a huge success. Further novels and stories followed, including Death in Venice (1912) and The Magic Mountain (1924); five years following publication of the latter novel, Mann was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. When Hitler came to power, Mann fled to Switzerland, and from there he escaped to California at the outbreak of the Second World War. He is buried in Switzerland, where he spent his final years.

Lesley Chamberlain is a British writer and critic who has written extensively on German and Russian literature and published three novels.