<p>The world-famous masterpiece by Nobel laureate Thomas Mann -- here in a new translation by Michael Henry Heim</p> <p>Published on the eve of World War I, a decade after <i>Buddenbrooks</i> had established Thomas Mann as a literary celebrity, <i>Death in Venice</i> tells the story of Gustav von Aschenbach, a successful but aging writer who follows his wanderlust to Venice in search of spiritual fulfillment that instead leads to his erotic doom.</p> <p>In the decaying city, besieged by an unnamed epidemic, he becomes obsessed with an exquisite Polish boy, Tadzio. "It is a story of the voluptuousness of doom," Mann wrote. "But the problem I had especially in mind was that of the artist's dignity."</p>