There are few writers who have chronicled with such honest clarity and such bold honesty the development of the soul through the stages of life. Peter Kamintsend (1904), Damian (1919), Siddhartha (1922), The Steppenwolf (1927), Narcissus and Goldmund (1930), and The Journey to the East (1932) are different versions of a spiritual autobiography, and different depictions of the path of Joan. Each new step refines the image of all previous steps, and each experience opens new worlds of exploration in a continuous effort to communicate the vision.
Hermann Hesse, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, was closely connected to the Indian world. He was influenced by Eastern philosophies. When he was once asked about the most important influences in his life, he said that they were “the Christian and never nationalistic spirit of my parents’ house,” “reading Chinese masterpieces,” and “the personality of the historian Jacob Burckhardt.”
