From the international best-selling author of Siddhartha

As a sensitive, disabled young composer and musician, the narrator, Kuhn, is drawn to a sensual singer named Gertrude through their mutual love of music. Slowly he becomes consumed by an enduring passion for her, the fruits of which inspire him to compose his great work. His love remains unrequited, however, because Gertrude has eyes for another man; his deeply cynical friend, Muoth, the talented operatic singer, whom Kuhn fears as much as he admires for his destructive nature.

Gertrude is an effortlessly reflective and readable bildungsroman, full of Hesse's subtle and significant insights into the human soul.

Translated from the German by Hilda Rosner

'Brooding Teutonic power … the musical detail is extraordinarily well done.' – Times Literary Supplement

'Whether or not one accepts the philosophy implicit in this tale, there is no question of the beauty and artistry of its telling.' – Scotsman

'It would be a pity to miss this book – it has such a rare flavour of truth and simplicity.' – Stevie Smith, Observer

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HERMANN HESSE (1877-1963) is counted among the leading thinkers of the twentieth century. Born in Germany and raised in a Black Forest town, he rebelled against a stern monastic education and worked as a locksmith and a bookseller before embarking on a 65-year writing career. Having traveled as far as India, he settled in Switzerland in 1911 in opposition to German militarism. Awarded the Nobel Prize in 1946, he died in 1963 aged eighty-five.