Hermann Hesse July 2, 1877, Calw, Germany - August 9, 1962, Montagnola, Switzerland) - German writer and artist, Nobel Prize laureate (1946). He called all his work "a protracted attempt to tell the story of his spiritual development," "a biography of the soul." One of the main themes of the writer's work is the fate of the artist in a society hostile to him, the place of genuine art in the world.