Klaus Mann

Klaus Heinrich Thomas Mann (18 November 1906 – 21 May 1949) was a German writer and dissident. He was the son of Thomas Mann, a nephew of Heinrich Mann and brother of Erika Mann (with whom he maintained a lifelong close relationship) and Golo Mann. He is well known for his 1936 novel, Mephisto. Background Born in Munich, Klaus Mann was the son of German writer Thomas Mann and his wife, Katia Pringsheim. His father was baptized as a Lutheran, while his mother was from a family of secular Jews. Due to his being the grandson of Júlia da Silva Bruhns, he was also of Portuguese-Indigenous Brazilian partial descent. Life and career Mann began writing short stories in 1924 and the following year became drama critic for a Berlin newspaper. His first literary works were published in 1925. Mann's early life was described by him as romantic, in beautiful upper-class surroundings (Je suis de mon temps. Kind dieser Zeit) but his homosexuality complicated his early adulthood, and he developed a difficult relationship with his father. After only a short time in various schools, he traveled with his sister Erika Mann, a year older than himself, around the world, visiting the U.S. in 1927; they reported on the trip in essays published as a collaborative travelogue entitled Rundherum in 1929. During his early travels often by car throughout Europe and North Africa as well as America and Asia, Erika was at the wheel or determined the itinerary and thus compensated for his inability to make personal and useful decisions. That assistance by his dearly-loved sister continued even into his later adulthood but could not save him from his own self-destructive behaviors and excessive drug use.