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  • Published: 15 April 2005
  • ISBN: 9781590302279
  • Imprint: Shambhala
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 192
  • RRP: $26.00

Siddhartha

A New Translation




One of the most acclaimed and best-selling spiritual classics of the twentieth century--now in the Shambhala Pocket Library series.

This book chronicles the spiritual evolution of a man living in India at the time of the Buddha—a tale that has inspired generations of readers. We are invited along Siddhartha's journey experiencing his highs, lows, loves, and disappointments along the way. Hesse begins by showing us the life of a privileged brahmin's son. Handsome, well-loved, and growing increasingly dissatisfied with the life expected of him, Siddhartha sets out on his journey, not realizing that he is fulfilling the prophesies proclaimed at his birth. Siddhartha blends in with the world, showing the reader the beauty and intricacies of the mind, nature, and his experiences on the path to enlightenment.

Sherab Chödzin Kohn's flowing, poetic translation conveys the philosophical and spiritual nuances of Hesse's text, paying special attention to the qualities of meditative experience. Also included is an extensive introduction by Paul W. Morris that discusses the impact Siddhartha has had on American culture.

  • Published: 15 April 2005
  • ISBN: 9781590302279
  • Imprint: Shambhala
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 192
  • RRP: $26.00

About the author

Hermann Hesse

Hermann Hesse was born in Calw, Württemberg, in 1877. He intended to follow in his father's footsteps as a Protestant pastor and missionary, but rebelled against traditional academic education and instead worked for a while as a bookseller, antique dealer and mechanic. After his first novel Peter Camenzind was published in 1904, he devoted himself to writing. In 1919, as a protest against German militarism in the First World War, Hesse moved back to Switzerland where he lived in self-imposed exile until his death at the age of eighty-five in 1962.

Hesse was strongly influenced by his interest in music, the psychoanalytic theories of Jung and Eastern thought. His early novels were traditional, but with the publication in 1919 of Demian, a Freudian study of adolescence with Nietzschean emphasis on the superior individual, he became an 'uninhibited innovator.' Each of his later novels, including Steppenwolf, Siddhartha and Narcissus and Goldmund, was a step in Hesse's determined search for the self. The Glass Bead Game (Das Glasperlenspiel [Magister Ludi]) was his last and consummate work.

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