4.0
Demian
ByPublisher Description
A powerful new translation of Nobel Prize winner Hermann Hesse’s masterpiece of youthful rebellion—with a foreword and cover art by James Franco
A Penguin Classic
A young man awakens to selfhood and to a world of possibilities beyond the conventions of his upbringing in Nobel Prize winner Hermann Hesse’s beloved novel Demian. Emil Sinclair is a quiet boy drawn into a forbidden yet seductive realm of petty crime and defiance. His guide is his precocious, mysterious classmate Max Demian, who provokes in Emil a search for self-discovery and spiritual fulfillment. A brilliant psychological portrait, Demian is given new life in this translation, which together with James Franco’s personal and inspiring foreword will bring a new generation to Hesse’s widely influential coming-of-age novel.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
A Penguin Classic
A young man awakens to selfhood and to a world of possibilities beyond the conventions of his upbringing in Nobel Prize winner Hermann Hesse’s beloved novel Demian. Emil Sinclair is a quiet boy drawn into a forbidden yet seductive realm of petty crime and defiance. His guide is his precocious, mysterious classmate Max Demian, who provokes in Emil a search for self-discovery and spiritual fulfillment. A brilliant psychological portrait, Demian is given new life in this translation, which together with James Franco’s personal and inspiring foreword will bring a new generation to Hesse’s widely influential coming-of-age novel.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesDemian Reviews
4.0
“All I can say is I just found Sinclair to be so relatable! The way he grapples with the temptation of the “dark world” and as he grows this temptation gets bigger to the point of being able to not refuse it anymore. It show how Sinclair’s rebellion starts to make him feel isolated from society. He goes on these rants with being unable to fit in, the struggle with conformity, and how his life is so goddamn depressing. It feels like I just got teleported back to my junior year where I would be this most insufferable kid.
Overall I just really loved this! The religious references literally hooked me on this book. Honestly the only thing that I wasn’t expecting were the homoerotic undertones, this book was published in 1919 so I’m guessing people just ignored it since at that time male physical affection in friendships was more normalized compared to today.”
“Herman Hesse’s writing is so incredibly captivating. The plot captures the very essence of the human condition and the journey of growth and maturity, not just physically and emotionally, but spiritually. I related to so much to Sinclair’s internal turmoil as he loses the sparkle of his childhood and is thrown into a morally ambiguous world.”
About Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1946. His many books include Siddhartha, Steppenwolf, and Narcissus and Goldmund.
Damion Searls (translator) has translated many classic twentieth-century authors, including Proust, Rilke, and Thomas Bernhard. His translation of Hans Keilson’s Comedy in a Minor Key was a New York Times Notable Book and a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. Searls lives in Brooklyn.
Ralph Freedman (introduction) is a professor emeritus of comparative literature at Princeton University and the author of an acclaimed biography of Hermann Hesse. He lives in Decatur, Georgia.
James Franco (foreword) is an Oscar-nominated actor and director. His writing has appeared in Esquire, the Wall Street Journal, and McSweeney’s. Franco lives in New York.
Damion Searls (translator) has translated many classic twentieth-century authors, including Proust, Rilke, and Thomas Bernhard. His translation of Hans Keilson’s Comedy in a Minor Key was a New York Times Notable Book and a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. Searls lives in Brooklyn.
Ralph Freedman (introduction) is a professor emeritus of comparative literature at Princeton University and the author of an acclaimed biography of Hermann Hesse. He lives in Decatur, Georgia.
James Franco (foreword) is an Oscar-nominated actor and director. His writing has appeared in Esquire, the Wall Street Journal, and McSweeney’s. Franco lives in New York.
Other books by Hermann Hesse
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