For his 150th birthday: the whole of Thomas Mann and his real life, captivatingly told, described and explained using new sources.

He is the literary magician of the twentieth century: Nobel Prize winner and celebrated genius and at the same time as unhappy as one can be. He loves and is not allowed to love, the ideas of his time stand in his way. What a drive for great literature - and what a life of suffering.

Since his early worldwide success with Buddenbrooks and two decades later with The Magic Mountain, all doors have opened for him. No other German voice fights against Hitler as audibly as his, no other writer heaps honors on himself as he does. His wife Katia and his six children surrounded him like a fortress. But the abyss is always just a step away.

Tilmann Lahme is a literary historian and author. He has worked as an editor in the features section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and taught at the University of Lüneburg.

Jan Ehlert works as a permanent editor for radio and is one of the hosts of the NDR podcast eat.READ.sleep.