According to various legends, Gregorius, the Christian Oedipus, occupied the papal throne at the end of the 10th century under the name of Gregory V. Based on a medieval epic by a German poet, which was collected by another anonymous French author who composed La Vie de Saint -Grégoìre, around the year 1190, Mann created a gigantic figure: that of the protagonist.

This will be surrounded by adventures and events, atrocious and incestuous elements placed here at the service of a morality with a certain impious humor, and also underlined by an unexpected, baroque and gloomy poetry.

Thus, The Chosen One is, in addition to a convincing recreation of the time, a great novel about low passions, an exemplary story of collapse and elevation, of condemnation and forgiveness. One of the most unknown works of the Nobel Prize for Literature Thomas Mann, a little gem of literature that we now present corrected and revised.