by Heinz Bütler
GermanGermanFor Hermann Hesse, everything was supposed to be different in Ticino. After being thrown off course as a writer by the First World War, he was drawn from Berne to Montagnola in the spring of 1919. He hoped that the atmosphere, climate and language would give him an artistic boost. In the summer months that followed, he frantically wrote “Klingsor’s Last Summer”, the story of a painter who, like his creator, succumbs to the lure of the south. In his essay film, Heinz Bütler devotes himself to perhaps the most industrious and glowing period in Hesse’s life. While actor Peter Simonischek reads extracts from “Klingsor’s Last Summer”, the poet and his alter ego are also brought to life with remarkable linguistic skill by such literary connoisseurs as Sibylle Lewitscharoff.
