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The prize-winning author Colm T贸ib铆n recreates the life and work of one of Germany鈥檚 most famous and acclaimed writers Thomas Mann. The Magician is a deeply intimate portrait of a private man, revealing both his suppressed homosexuality and complex family ties, and of a public writer who sought to explicate the soul of Germany in the 20th century.

When Hitler came to power Thomas Mann fled his homeland and went into exile in America, and in Switzerland, never to return to live in the country that inspired his creativity. Karen Leeder, Professor of Modern German Literature at Oxford, considers how German writers have become embroiled in the major events of history, and the impact on their writing. She has translated the lectures of the poet Durs Gr眉nbein, For the Dying Calves, to be published in November.

Mann鈥檚 novel Buddenbrooks, which earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature, is the story of the decline of a wealthy bourgeois merchant family. As a family saga it鈥檚 been likened to Jesse Armstrong鈥檚 21st century creation, Succession. As the television drama reaches its third series Armstrong explains why the back-stabbing, power-grabbing antics of a superrich, dysfunctional family has so caught the public imagination.

Producer: Katy Hickman