If you wanted to be a hippie, you not only had to grow your hair long and smoke weed, you also had to at least read the Steppenwolf. And they would have remained there, if the conflicted figure of Harry Haller did not capture the feeling of a whole generation, which broke free in the US in the 1960s. But notable German literary critics would still call his works “kitsch”. When the novel was published by Manesse in 1946, Hermann Hesse had just been awarded the Nobel Prize, above all for his pacifist attitude, which was representative for a different, peace-loving kind of German literature. When the novel was published in 1927, it was one among many, even, as some critics claimed, one without any literary significance whatsoever. After all there’s a reason why his hero’s initials match his own. “Der Steppenwolf” was written by Hermann Hesse (1877-1962), influenced by Hesse’s own doubts about the society he lived in after the First World War. He is a lonesome outsider, jealous of all those who are happy with their meaningless little lives, able to enjoy the moment. On the other hand, he is sometimes overcome by his other side, the “Steppenwolf” (a “coyote”), who disregards all conventions and has long broken with his bourgeois lifestyle. On the one hand, he really badly wants to be a respectable citizen with a desire for security and love. It’s not easy being Harry Haller, the focal character of the novel “Der Steppenwolf”. Published by Manesse, Bibliothek der Weltliteratur, 1946
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