Thomas Mann was born in Lubeck, a city north of Germany. Even as a boy he was determind to become a write. He began the long novel "Buddenbrooks" while visiting his brother Heinrich (also a novelist) in Italy, which was completed apon his return to Munich in 1900. Shortly after the publication on "Tonio Kroger" in 1903 he married Katjaa Pringsheim. He spoke out against the rising threat of fascissm in Germany and Italy in the late 1920's in the story "Mario and the Magician" in 1929, the same year in which he won the Nobel Prize for literature. Mann settled in the United States in 1938 and became a citizen in 1944. After a brief post-war visit to Germany in 1949, Mann settled in Switzerland near Zurich. While there he wrote "The Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man" in 1954 and died the following year.