In , one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century tells the dramatic story of a young man's awakening to selfhood. Writing in the existential tradition of Nietzsche and Dostoevsky, and employing the discoveries of Freud, Hermann Hesse portrays the turmoil of Emil Sinclair, a docile young man who is drawn by his schoolmates - and especially by the precocious Max Demian - into a secret and dangerous world of petty crime and revolt against convention.