Siddhartha

hermann hesse susan bernofsky tom robbins

Hermann Hesse's classic novel Siddhartha has delighted, inspired, and influenced generations of readers, writers, and thinkers. Though set in a place and time far removed from the Germany of 1922, the year of the book's debut, the novel is infused with the sensibilities of Hesse's time, synthesizing disparate philosophies Eastern religions, Jungian archetypes, Western individualism into a unique vision of life as expressed through one man's search for meaning.

It is the story of the quest of Siddhartha, a wealthy Indian Brahmin who casts off a life of privilege and comfort to seek spiritual fulfillment and wisdom. On his journey, Siddhartha encounters wandering ascetics, Buddhist monks, and successful merchants, as well as a courtesan named Kamala and a simple ferryman who has attained enlightenment. Traveling among these people and experiencing life's vital passages, love, work, friendship, and fatherhood. Siddhartha discovers that true knowledge is guided from within.

Susan Bernofsky's magnificent new translation brings out Hesse's inspired lyricism and his elegant, melodious cadences, illuminating the novel's universal themes and timeless wisdom about the human condition.

This original Modern Library edition includes a lively new Introduction by Tom Robbins and a glossary of Indian terms.

Genres fictionphilosophyspiritualityliteratureclassicsbuddhismgerman literaturenovelshistorical fictionschool

129 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1,1922

Places

india,

This edition

Format: 129 pages, Hardcover
Published: July 18, 2006 by Modern Library
ISBN: 9780679643364
ASIN: 0679643362
Language: English

Characters More characters

Siddhartha

A Brahmins sonSiddhartha Gautama,[e] most commonly referred to as the Buddha ("the awakened"),[f][g] was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE[4][5][6][c] and founded Buddhism.According t...
Govinda

Siddharthas friend and shadow from childhood.more...
Gotama

Gautama Buddha, also known as Siddhārtha Gautama, Shakyamuni Buddha, or simply the Buddha, after the title of Buddha, was an ascetic (śramaṇa) and sage, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. He is believed to have lived and taught mostly in the eastern...
Kamala

A beautiful courtesan who bore Siddhartha a son....
Vasudeva

A ferryman....

About the author

hermann hesse

Many works, including Siddhartha (1922) and Steppenwolf (1927), of German-born Swiss writer Hermann Hesse concern the struggle of the individual to find wholeness and meaning in life; he won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1946.

Other best-known works of this poet, novelist, and painter include The Glass Bead Game, which, also known as Magister Ludi, explore a search of an individual for spirituality outside society.

In his time, Hesse was a popular and influential author in the German-speaking world; worldwide fame only came later. Young Germans desiring a different and more "natural" way of life at the time of great economic and technological progress in the country, received enthusiastically Peter Camenzind, first great novel of Hesse.

Throughout Germany, people named many schools. In 1964, people founded the Calwer Hermann-Hesse-Preis, awarded biennially, alternately to a German-language literary journal or to the translator of work of Hesse to a foreign language. The city of Karlsruhe, Germany, also associates a Hermann Hesse prize.