Nobel Prize-winner Hermann Hesse was born in Calw in the Black Forest, Germany in 1877. His parents were both missionaries. His first novel Peter Camenzind (1904) was a success, but World War I brought him into conflict with rampant German nationalism. In 1923, he traded in his German citizenship for a Swiss passport. Perhaps his most famous books are Siddhartha, Steppenwolf, Narziss und Goldmund, and The Glass Bead Game. <p/>Will Aaltonen Pearson ran away from home aged 15 and joined the Royal Navy. Seven years and three world tours later, he won a scholarship to Ruskin Workers' College, Oxford, and from there went on to study French and German at Oriel College. He has been a writer for the best part of thirty years, working in television, newspapers, magazines and books. As 'Will Pearson', he has ghost-written several top ten best-sellers, and published other, non-fiction books on a wide range of subjects. His translations include Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis and Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha, both for Arcturus Publishing.
