Free Thinking

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Free Thinking: Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Thomas Mann

Novelist Colm Toibin joins Anne McElvoy to discuss the German author's life and struggles.

Sibling rivalry, German politics and exile, the differences between the lifestyles of the Nobel prize winner and his children: Anne McElvoy and guests look at Thomas Mann's career.

Would he condemn Hitler? That's the question novelist Thomas Mann was continually asked, after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929 following novels such as Buddenbrooks and The Magic Mountain. Colm Toibin's new novel The Magician details the differences of opinion between Mann and his brother, and the way his children were part of a bold and experimental younger generation of writers.  Anne McElvoy brings Colm Toibin, Sean Williams and Dr Erica Wickerson together for a discussion about Mann's life and writing and the pressure put upon writers to make a public stand on topical issues.   

Colm Toibin is the author of ten novels including Brooklyn, Nora Webster and The Testament of Mary. His latest book, The Magician, is out now.

Sean Williams is a BBC Radio 3 AHRC New Generation Thinker and Senior Lecturer in German and European Cultural History in the School of Languages and Cultures at the University of Sheffield. 

Erica Wickerson, is the author of The Architecture of Narrative Time: Thomas Mann and the Problems of Modern Narrative, she's a British Academy Rising Star and recent holder of a research fellowship at St John’s College, Cambridge.  

Producer: Ruth Watts 

Image: Colm Toibin
Credit: Reynaldo Rivera

You can find Colm Toibin in a Free Thinking discussion about women's voices in the Classical world recorded at Hay Festival https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08rsrlt
and talking about his novels at the 2012 Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p2shp

You can find Free Thinking discussions about German culture including 
Neil McGregor and crime writer Volker Kutscherhttps://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b079mcgf 
New Angles on Post-War Germany and Austria with Sophie Hardach and Florian Huber    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006sjx 
Mocking Power past and present with Daniel Kelhmann, Karen Leeder  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dzww 
Anne McElvoy talks to Susan Neimann, Christopher Hampton and Ursula Owen about tolerance, censorship and free speech and lessons from German history
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008hvz

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