Thomas Mann, American Culture, and the Making of a Modern Writer

FAIN: FA-57586-14

Tobias Boes
University of Notre Dame (Notre Dame, IN 46556-4635)

This proposed book manuscript will examine the processes by which the work of the German modernist author Thomas Mann was translated, imitated, adapted and interpreted in the United States during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. During this period Mann reached the zenith of his popular acclaim in America, selling hundreds of thousands of books. I will argue that over the course of these decades, a time in which his works were largely unavailable in Germany because of a ban by the Nazis, Mann became the first author in the history of world literature to write books in the conscious knowledge that they would have their main impact in translation. In this, he anticipates contemporary authors such as Milan Kundera, Haruki Murakami, or Orhan Pamuk.

Media Coverage

55 Voices for Democracy Podcast (Media Coverage)
Publication: Los Angeles Review of Books
Date: 12/2/2021
URL: https://www.vatmh.org/en/the-podcast-55-voices-for-democracy-en.html

Associated Products

Thomas Mann, World Author: Representation and Autonomy in the World Republic of Letters (Article)
Title: Thomas Mann, World Author: Representation and Autonomy in the World Republic of Letters
Author: Boes, Tobias
Abstract: In this article, I present an argument for Thomas Mann as a prototypical “world author,” a term I use to refer to writers who take an active interest in managing the global reception of their works. What makes Thomas Mann especially interesting in this context is that he achieved global recognition not despite, but rather precisely because of his identification with a national culture: during the 1930s and 1940s, he essentially became the spokesman for the “other Germany” suppressed by the Nazis. This sort of equation would become commonplace over the following decades, especially with authors from the developing world. Reading Thomas Mann as a world author thus affords us a new perspective not only on his own life and work, but also on his position within literary history.
Year: 2015
Primary URL: http://www.utpjournals.press/toc/seminar/51/2
Primary URL Description: Seminar Online.
Access Model: Subscription Only.
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies
Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Thomas Mann's War: Literature, Politics, and the World Republic of Letters (Book)
Title: Thomas Mann's War: Literature, Politics, and the World Republic of Letters
Author: Tobias Boe
Abstract: In Thomas Mann's War, Tobias Boes traces how the acclaimed and best-selling author became one of America's most prominent opponents to Nazism and establishes Mann as a significant figure in the wartime global republic of letters. Winner of the 1929 Nobel Prize in literature for such works as Buddenbrooks and The Magic Mountain, Mann began his self-imposed exile in the United States in 1938, having fled his native Germany in the wake of Nazi persecution and public burnings of his books.
Year: 2019
Primary URL: https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501761706/thomas-manns-war/#bookTabs=1
Primary URL Description: Publisher's Link
Access Model: Hardcover and Paperback
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 978-1-5017-617
Copy sent to NEH?: No

Thomas Manns Krieg: Literatur und Politik im amerikanischen Exil (Book)
Title: Thomas Manns Krieg: Literatur und Politik im amerikanischen Exil
Author: Tobias Boes
Abstract: German translation of "Thomas Mann's War"
Year: 2021
Primary URL: https://www.wallstein-verlag.de/9783835339736-thomas-manns-krieg.html
Primary URL Description: Publisher's website
Access Model: Hardcover
Publisher: Wallstein Verlag
Type: Translation
ISBN: 978-3835339736
Translator: Norbert Juraschitz & Heide Lutosch
Copy sent to NEH?: No

---