Der Steppenwolf, published in 1927, is Hermann Hesse’s most formally adventurous novel. Written in German, it follows Harry Haller, a middle-aged intellectual who believes himself to be half-man, half-wolf — torn between bourgeois society and wild outsider instinct — as he descends through Weimar Zurich into a hallucinatory realm of jazz, sexuality, and self-confrontation called the Magic Theatre.
The novel became a touchstone of the 1960s counterculture and continues to speak powerfully to anyone who has felt themselves at odds with the society around them. Download this free public-domain EPUB to read Hesse’s most challenging and visionary work in the original German.