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Would he condemn Hitler? That's the question novelist Thomas Mann was continually asked, after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929 following novels such as Buddenbrooks and The Magic Mountain. Colm Toibin's new novel The Magician details the differences of opinion between Mann and his brother, and the way his children were part of a bold and experimental younger generation of writers. Anne McElvoy brings Colm Toibin, Sean Williams and Dr Erica Wickerson together for a discussion about Mann's life and writing and the pressure put upon writers to make a public stand on topical issues.

Colm Toibin is the author of ten novels including Brooklyn, Nora Webster and The Testament of Mary. His latest book, The Magician, is out now.

Sean Williams is a Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 3 AHRC New Generation Thinker and Senior Lecturer in German and European Cultural History in the School of Languages and Cultures at the University of Sheffield.

Erica Wickerson, is the author of The Architecture of Narrative Time: Thomas Mann and the Problems of Modern Narrative, she's a British Academy Rising Star and recent holder of a research fellowship at St John’s College, Cambridge.

Producer: Ruth Watts

Image: Colm Toibin
Credit: Reynaldo Rivera

You can find Colm Toibin in a Free Thinking discussion about women's voices in the Classical world recorded at Hay Festival /programmes/b08rsrlt
and talking about his novels at the 2012 Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead /programmes/b01p2shp

You can find Free Thinking discussions about German culture including
Neil McGregor and crime writer Volker Kutscher/programmes/b079mcgf
New Angles on Post-War Germany and Austria with Sophie Hardach and Florian Huber /programmes/m0006sjx
Mocking Power past and present with Daniel Kelhmann, Karen Leeder /programmes/m000dzww
Anne McElvoy talks to Susan Neimann, Christopher Hampton and Ursula Owen about tolerance, censorship and free speech and lessons from German history
/programmes/m0008hvz