Death in Venice

Death in Venice is a novella by German author Thomas Mann, published in 1912. It presents an ennobled writer who visits Venice and is liberated, uplifted, and then increasingly obsessed by the sight of a boy in a family of Polish tourists—Tadzio, so nicknamed for Tadeusz. Tadzio was based on a real boy named Władzio whom Mann had observed during his 1911 visit to the city.