Paul Thomas Mann (1875-1955) was a German novelist, short-story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature. The novella Death in Venice (1912) tells the story of Gustav von Aschenbach, a famous middle-aged writer who visits Venice in search of artistic inspiration but becomes obsessed by a handsome youth. Von Aschenbach’s obsession with the teenager intensifies while the city is being enveloped by a cholera epidemic. He stalks the young Tadzio and his family through the streets and canals of Venice, exchanging glances but never speaking to him. Infused with haunting imagery, the complex narrative contains many layers of meaning and striking symbolism.