Have you read Siddhartha? If you have then you would know that it was written by Herman Hesse, but have you ever stopped to who exactly Hermann Hesse was? Hermann Hesse was born in Calw, Germany in 1877. His family consisted of missionaries who frequently traveled around the world to spread the word of God. His father was a Pietist-Lutheran and often spoke about human nature being inherently evil, his grandparents, however, traveled throughout East Asia for their missions and brought back souvenirs and books from the different places they traveled to. Over the years he read the books his grandparents brought and he found himself falling in love with Indian culture.
When Hesse was young he often had behavioral problems despite his pietist education, which was meant to decimate his individuality and rebuild him into a good pietist. He was often expelled from the schools his parents sent him to. He was a very smart and educated young man, but he was defiant against his father as he wished to follow a different path. Just as Siddhartha was with his own father.
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However, it did not work out as he made no money and was unable to support himself and his wife. In 1904, he wrote the novel Peter Camenzind, which was successful and he felt that he would be able to make a living from writing. In 1912, he moved to Switzerland and began to work on a book that would later become