Herman Hesse

German-Swiss novelist and poet — Nobel Prize in Literature 1946 — author of Siddhartha, Steppenwolf, and The Glass Bead Game — whose novels of spiritual seeking and self-discovery became central texts of the 1960s counterculture.

Creates the spiritual seeking novel as literary form — Hesse's novels (Siddhartha, Steppenwolf, Narcissus and Goldmund, The Glass Bead Game) explore the tension between individual spiritual development and social integration; they are the most sustained literary exploration of the Eastern-Western synthesis in 20th century fiction.