When the Sun Sets. The Mann Family in Sanary

Intellectuals in Exile. A New Historical Collage by the Author of “The Summer of an Entire Century”

Master of fictionalized historical narrative, Florian Illies, in his new book, creates a group portrait of the German creative intelligentsia—people who, in 1933, suddenly found themselves facing the onslaught of fascism. Front and center is the Mann family, including not only the famous brothers Thomas and Heinrich, but also the children of the Nobel laureate, who are likewise trying their hand at literature. Alongside the Manns, the cast includes Arnold Zweig, Lion Feuchtwanger, Bertolt Brecht, Aldous Huxley, and many, many other celebrated figures of culture whose fate brought them to the seaside little town of Sanary-sur-Mer in the south of France. The book is written in the author’s characteristic ironic tragicomical manner of documentary collage, and it was translated into Russian by Mihail Rudnitsky, a laureate of multiple translation awards.