J M

Toibin glides with deceptive ease through the complexities of the life and literary sources of an author of famously dense novels. I particularly appreciated the explanation of how Mann was viewed- threatened and then courted - by the German/Nazi government. To see a Nobel Prize winning writer as a “commodity” prized second only to Einstein would never occur to this reader. The value of Mann’s voice in politics is interesting in parallel to the current war in Ukraine where the defection of a Russian ballerina carries some symbolic weight. An interesting read on many different levels!