Correspondence 1943-1955

"Begun during their joint exile in California and ending with Mann's death just a few days before a long-postponed reunion in post-war Europe, this correspondence between the twentieth century’s most brilliant philosopher of modernism and the legendary German representative of modernist fiction is a surprisingly moving document to their mutual respect and admiration, closeness and distance, guarded intimacy and striking intellectual affinities. Carefully annotated, these letters offer us a treasure trove of deeply personal exchanges about each man’s works, while brimming with shared insights into post-war German culture and the McCarthy years in the United States."

-- Andreas Huyssen, Columbia University

"Adorno had been a lifelong, if at times uneasy, admirer of Thomas Mann's genius. The invitation by Mann to become a technical and historical adviser for the musicology and philosophy of music in Mann's Doctor Faustus put Adorno near the centre of shared exile in California. It also entailed a bitter conflict with Schoenberg. Adorno was caught in the middle. These letters document not only a fascinating intellectual encounter, but an instance of creative collaboration rare in literary history."

-- George Steiner, Churchill College, Cambridge