Death in Venice (German: Der Tod in Venedig) is a novella by German author Thomas Mann, published in 1912.

 Death in Venice (German: Der Tod in Venedig) is a novella by German author Thomas Mann, published in 1912.^[1] It presents an ennobled writer who visits Venice and is liberated, uplifted, and then increasingly obsessed by the sight of a boy in a family of Polish tourists—Tadzio, a nickname for Tadeusz. Tadzio was likely based on a boy named Władzio whom Mann had observed during his 1911 visit to the city.

The former Grand Hôtel des Bains in Venice where Thomas Mann stayed and where he set action in the novel.

Translations

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An English translation by Kenneth Burke was published in periodical form in The Dial in 1924 over three issues (vol. LXXVI, March to May, issues # 3–5, Camden, NJ, USA). This translation was published in book form the following year by Alfred A. Knopf as Death in Venice and Other Stories. W. H. Auden called it the definitive translation, but it is unclear to what other translations Auden was comparing it.^[10]

Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter's authorized translation, published in 1922 in Mann's Stories of Three Decades,^[11] has been less well received by critics due to Lowe-Porter's treatment of sexuality and homoeroticism.^[12] In the Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation it is criticized for its "puritanism", which saw Lowe-Porter "tone down Mann's treatment of sexuality, especially homoeroticism". The author considers the result "disastrous" and sees "a reworked, sanitized version of the text" by Mann.^[13]

A translation published in 2005 by Michael Henry Heim won the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize.

Other translations include those by David Luke (1988), Clayton Koelb (1994), Stanley Applebaum (1995), Joachim Neugroschel (1998), Martin C. Doege (2010), and Damion Searls (2023).