Considered an outstanding German novelist of his age, Thomas Mann (1875-1955) was born on this day in Lübeck, Germany, the second of five children from a family of successful merchants.

Inspired by the writing of Friedrich W. Nietzsche and music of Richard Wagner, Mann once said: "The task of a writer consists in being able to make something out of an idea."

Best known for writing the realistic novel, which is characterized by symbolism and insightful psychology, his first novel, the autobiographical masterpiece Buddenbrooks (1901), chronicled the decline of a prosperous merchant family. His other prose epics included Death in Venice (1913) and Magic Mountain (1924).

Eloquently capturing the lives of early 20th Century European society, he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929.

"A man's dying is more the survivors' affair than his own," he observed.

Living in exile when the Nazis came to power in 1933, Mann became a U.S. citizen in 1940. "A man lives not only his personal life, as an individual, but also, consciously or unconsciously, the life of his epoch and his contemporaries," he said.

Do your best and enjoy the process!