Demian : the story of Emil Sinclair's youth

In Demian, one of the great writers of the twentieth century tells the dramatic story of young, docile Emil Sinclair's descent—led by precocious shoolmate Max Demian—into a secret and dangerous world of petty crime and revolt against convention and eventual awakening to selfhood. "The electrifying influence exercised on a whole generation just after the First World War by Demian ...is unforgettable. With uncanny accuracy this poetic work struck the nerve of the times and called forth grateful rapture from a whole youthful generation who believed that an interpreter of their innermost life had risen from their own midst." — From the Introduction by Thomas Mann One of the great writers of the 20th century tells the dramatic story of a young man's awakening to selfhood. A young man awakens to selfhood and to a world of possibilities beyond the conventions of his upbringing in Nobel Prize winner Hermann Hesse’s beloved novel Demian. Emil Sinclair is a quiet boy drawn into a forbidden yet seductive realm of petty crime and defiance. His guide is his precocious, mysterious classmate Max Demian, who provokes in Emil a search for self-discovery and spiritual fulfillment. A brilliant psychological portrait, Demian is given new life in this translation, which together with James Franco’s personal and inspiring foreword will bring a new generation to Hesse’s widely influential coming-of-age novel. This first major novel by Nobel Prize-winning author Hermann Hesse incorporates a theme he returned to again and again in most of his works: the fundamental duality of existence. The youthful protagonist, Emil Sinclair, however, his older friend, Max Demian, manages to both clarify and complicate Sinclair's confusion about life's conflicting values. Recounted in engaging prose, rich in sympathy and imagination, this brilliant exploration of the polarities of human nature has retained its remarkable power as a poignant statement of the terrors and torments of adolescence A friend's mother, war, and newly discoverd self-respect draw a young man toward his psychological awakening I shall begin my story with an experience I had when I was ten and attended our small town's Latin school.