Lubeck, 1875 - Zurich, 1955 Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929, Mann is considered one of the greatest writers of s. XX, mirrors the turbulent society of his time. He grew up in Munich, where he began writing short stories and essays. Participated in several magazines such as Simplizissimus, and wrote several short story collections until made ​​a name with his first novel The Buddenbrock (1901), a story of coming within bourgeois family. Subsequently published Death in Venice (1911), in which the potential is hinted homosexuality. The novel won a widely known through the back adptación that Visconti made ​​for the big screen.

The bourgeois middle classes and the psychology of the artist are central themes in the work of Mann and also reflected on what would become his most famous and translated work, The Magic Mountain (1924) in which the German writer is able to dissect the European society at the time.