Climbing ‘The Magic Mountain’ Today

The Polish poet Adam Zagajewski once asked: “Isn’t it true that we’re still dealing with the heroes of The Magic Mountain?” More than 100 years after it was first published, Thomas Mann’s great novel feels as contemporary as ever. So, too, does the story of how Mann wrote it. Inspired by a visit to a Swiss sanatorium in 1912, the author completed it after 11 years, a world war, and the political paroxysms of the Weimar Republic.