Demian
A young man awakens to selfhood and to a world of possibilities beyond the conventions of his upbringing in Nobel Prize winner Hermann Hesse’s beloved novel Demian. Emil Sinclair is a quiet boy drawn into a forbidden yet seductive realm of petty crime and defiance. His guide is his precocious, mysterious classmate Max Demian, who provokes in Emil a search for self-discovery and spiritual fulfillment. A brilliant psychological portrait, Demian is given new life in this translation, which together with James Franco’s personal and inspiring foreword will bring a new generation to Hesse’s widely influential coming-of-age novel.
Themes & atmosphere
What you might want to know about Demian
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
In pre-WWI Germany, sheltered Emil Sinclair drifts between the safe world of his family and a darker outside one until an older student named Max Demian shows up at his school and quietly begins to reshape him.
Demian was written by Hermann Hesse and originally published in 1919 under the pseudonym Emil Sinclair. The novel is widely considered a touchstone of psychological and coming-of-age literature, drawing on Jungian ideas.
Demian is in the public domain in many countries given its 1919 publication, though English translations remain under their translators' copyrights. Free editions of older translations are available through Project Gutenberg.
Demian is 184 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Demian takes most readers 3 to 4 hours to finish.
Demian is a standalone novel by Hermann Hesse, not part of a series.
Demian is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.