My father: Thomas Mann: Thomas Mann

Author: Erica Mann
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2001-02-01
Features: Thomas Mann called Erica "a bold and outstanding child." If there was a problem at home, he would insist, "Let Erica add salt to the soup." Erica was Thomas Mann's favorite child, accompanying him through important stages of his life and greatly influencing him. When he hesitated in 1933 about whether to openly support the anti-fascist exile camp, she played a key role in his attitude shift. When he emigrated to the United States from Europe in 1938, it was Erica who helped him adapt to life on the new continent. In his final decade of life, his eldest daughter became his intimate collaborator; she edited his manuscripts, arranged his activities, assisted him at lectures, and managed matters such as adapting his novels into films. This book chronicles the history of this unusual father-daughter relationship. All of Erica Mann's significant remarks and attitudes about her father are collected here for the first time and commented upon. Many articles and letters—most of which have yet to be fully developed—provide a unique and inspiring introduction to Thomas Mann—a close-up of a writer, only someone particularly close could capture it with such insight.