The magic mountain

de Thomas Mann

The story involves a young man (Hans Castorp), who visits a cousin in a sanatorium in the Swiss Alps before World War I. After manifesting symptoms of tuberculosis, he remains there for seven years. The characters he meets during this time forms a microcosm of pre-war Europe and represents a classic example of the German Bildungsroman. The work was instrumental in winning Mann the Nobel Prize in Literature for 1929.