Hermann Hesse was one of the greatest literary figures of the German-speaking world. His deep humanity and searching philosophy were developed in such masterly works as Siddhartha, Steppenwolf and Narcissus and Goldmund, which together with his poems and a number of critical works (including If the War Goes On…) won him a leading place among contemporary thinkers. In 1946 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. He died in 1962 shortly after his eighty-fifth birthday.