'The task of a writer'

 

“The task of a writer consists of being able to make something out of an idea.” – Thomas Mann

 

Born in Lubeck, Germany on this date in 1875, Mann was a journalist, novelist, short story writer, philanthropist and essayist whose creative writing career was capped by the Nobel Prize in Literature.

 

Author of the wildly successful novel Buddonbrooks – a  tale about a merchant family and reflective of his own childhood – he became one of the most outspoken critics of Adolph Hitler and the Nazis.  Ultimately, he was forced to flee Germany, first to Czechoslovakia and then the United States.  After serving as a prominent anti-Nazi spokesperson throughout World War II, he became a naturalized American citizen and lived out his life in the U.S.  He died in 1955.

 

He relished his role as a writer but said he often struggled to find the right words to express his ideas. “I think,” he said, “that a writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”