Day 21: Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse

  

Steppenwolf (Der Steppenwolf), by Hermann Hesse, is an existential novel about the loneliness of a man torn between two aspects of his soul and his displacement between periods of history. Originally published in Germany in 1927, the first English translation was in 1929. Utilizing both autobiographical and psychoanalytic elements, the novel takes its name after the solitary “wolf of the steppes”. The story expresses Hesse’s profound spiritual crisis, while portraying the protagonist’s split between his civilized humanity and his barbaric, wolfish discord and homelessness. Hesse would later claim that the book was largely misunderstood.