The Magician

The Irish writer Colm Toíbín is one of our greatest novelists.

The Magician, a fictional biography of the German writer Thomas Mann, is a madcap family epic. So immediate are Toíbín’s portraits of Mann, his wife, and his children that one thinks one knows them. But Toíbín also offers a brilliant portrait of Mann as a writer.

We get inside his mind as he writes about his unfulfilled erotic desires. But perhaps what is most compelling for me is Toíbín’s portrait of Germany in the 1930s. Mann fled Germany for Switzerland in 1933 when Hitler became Chancellor, and eventually moved… show more.

The best-fictionalised biography of the exiled German Nobel Prize winner of 1929, Thomas Mann.

This elegant and intimate portrait of a great writer is a 'tour de force'. Compelling and imaginative it masterfully captures the private and public conflict of Mann and his family during a time of global tumult.

Mann's infatuation with one of the richest and cultured Jewish families in Munich results in his marriage with their daughter Katia. However, this only adds to his inner turmoil created by his secret private life, compounded by the rise of Hitler, and his need to rethink his relationship with Germany.… show more.