The Seasons of the Soul

“These vital, essential poems could not possibly be appearing at a more crucial time in the history of our Western culture.… Hermann Hesse’s poetry is as eye-opening and as life-giving as his most famous novels. It offers the heartfelt, infinitely timely guidance of someone who lived at every step what he wrote and who leads his readers back to the simplicity of ‘what we knew in the beginning.’”
—Peter Kingsley, author of Reality and A Story Waiting to Pierce You

“Ludwig Fischer proves wrong all who claim that ‘poetry is what gets lost in translation.’ His English versions of sixty-eight poems by Hermann Hesse ring as if they had been first conceived in English. In addition to that, Fischer’s sensitive introductions to these poems make this book a rare treasure. Hesse … struggled with the dark side of life and grew strong. Therefore his poems—now at last in English—can help us find strength to come fully alive.”
—Brother David Steindl-Rast, OSB, author of Deeper Than Words and The Heart of Prayer

“It is in his poems that you meet most intimately Hesse the man in all his emotional intensity, sometimes scalding self-knowledge, and fierce spiritual struggle, and so experience most completely the inner turmoil and revelations that led to his becoming
one of the philosopher-sages of our tumultuous transition.”
—from the foreword by Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope and Heart Yoga

“This collection of poetry reveals his inner journey, one that is often filled with inner turmoil and despairing, and yet unwavering in [Hesse’s] devotion toward an intimacy with self/spirit. Commentary from the scholar and translator Ludwig Max Fischer enriches our understanding of Hesse’s life context from which the poems were born.”
—New Consciousness Review

“The Seasons of the Soul offers valuable guidance in poetic form for those longing for a more meaningful life, seeking a sense of homecoming in nature, in each stage of life, in a renewed relationship with the divine.”
—Vitality Magazine

“A thoughtful work of literature, The Seasons of the Soul is a strong pick for any world literary studies and poetry collection.”
—Midwest Book Review

Hermann Hesse’s novels include Demian, Siddhartha, Steppenwolf, and The Glass Bead Game. The winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, he died in 1962 at age 85.

Ludwig Max Fischer, PhD, has been professor of German and comparative mythology for over forty years, most recently at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon.

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