Nobel Prize

«The best weapons against the infamies of life are courage, wilfulness and patience. Courage strengthens, wilfulness is fun and patience provides tranquility.»

Hermann Hesse, 1950

The great opus of Hesse's old age, The Glass Bead Game, had to be published in Switzerland in 1943 beacause it was unwelcome in Germany, where only in 1946 was he reallowed to publish his books .

In a letter to Erich Kahler, Thomas Mann wrote about The Glass Bead Game:
«It is one of the few things that our beaten-up and battered time has to offer that is courageous and of an individual and great conception.»

Again it was Thomas Mann who proposed, indeed several times, his friend and fellow-writer for the Nobel Prize. When the prize was attributed to him in November 1946, Hesse's reaction was reluctant. He had already retreated in October for a cure in Marin, in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. The Swiss Ambassador to Sweden accepted the prize for Hesse. The Nobel Prize created an avalanche of public interest; indeed, the post office in Montagnola even had to acquire a pushcart in order to transport the letters and parcels to the Casa Rossa!

Unimpressed, Hermann Hesse writes on January 6, 1947 to Richard Matzig:
«I am an old and sick man, and the world has got the idea into its head, to stone me to death with prizes, congratulations, dissertations and letters. There is nothing to be done to prevent it, but those that do it, shouldn't expect the victim to be grateful.»