Journey to the East is a short novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by German author Hermann Hesse

Hermann Hesse

Hermann Hesse was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature...

. It was first published in German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 in 1932 as "Die Morgenlandfahrt". This novel came directly after his biggest international success, Narcissus and Goldmund

Narcissus and Goldmund

Narcissus and Goldmund is a novel written by the German-Swiss author Hermann Hesse which was first published in German as Narziß und Goldmund in 1930...

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Journey to the East is written from the point of view of a man (in the book called "H. H.") who becomes a member of "The League", a timeless religious sect whose members include famous fictional and real characters, such as Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...

, Mozart, Pythagoras

Pythagoras

Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. Most of the information about Pythagoras was written down centuries after he lived, so very little reliable information is known about him...

, Paul Klee

Paul Klee

Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...

, Don Quixote, Tristram Shandy, Baudelaire, and the ferryman Vasudeva, a character from one of Hesse's earlier works, Siddhartha

Siddhartha (novel)

Siddhartha is a novel by Hermann Hesse that deals with the spiritual journey of an Indian man named Siddhartha during the time of the Buddha.The book, Hesse's ninth novel , was written in German, in a simple, powerful, and lyrical style. It was published in the U.S. in 1951 and became influential...

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