My father — Thomas Mann

Author: (German) Erica Mann
Publisher:
Publish 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 the 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 émigré camp, she played a key role in his attitude shift. When he left Europe for the United States 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 close collaborator; she edited his manuscripts, arranged his activities, assisted him at lectures, and managed matters such as turning his novels into films. This book chronicles the extraordinary father-daughter relationship. All of Erica Mann's important remarks and attitudes about her father are comprehensively 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 that only someone exceptionally close could capture.