赫尔曼·黑塞(1877—1962)，德国作家，1946年获得诺贝尔文学奖。《玻璃球游戏》是黑塞最重要的长篇小说。一个未来的世界里，玻璃球游戏是音乐和数学演变而成的符号系统，是人类所有的知识和精神财富。纷繁的政治和战争，人类文明正面l临毁灭的威胁。为拯救和宣扬人类这一精神文化，某宗教团体在做不懈的努力。克乃西特是个孤儿，由该宗教团体抚养成人，他天资聪颖，凭借出众的才华和优越的组织才能，在这个精英群体里不断升华，直至团体的最高顶端，成为玻璃球游戏大师。但随着年龄的增长，他不再满足这个与世隔绝的精神王国，觉得在这种象牙塔里对民众是不可能有所贡献的。他来到现实世界，试图用教育来改善整个世界，然而事业未竟，却在一次游泳中不幸溺水身亡。《玻璃球游戏》是老年黑塞回溯其一生的精神体验的结晶。十二载的苦心创作，作者几乎动用了一切文学手段：诗歌、小说、格言、书信、传记、文学理论等，应有尽有，各种题材在书中既打成一片又相对独立，附录中三篇记述不同历史时期不同国家信仰者的传记尤为精粹，它们貌似互不相干，本质上却与整部作品浑然一体，密切呼应，令人叫绝。（Das Glasperlenspiel (1877—1962) is a Germany writer and Nobel Prize winner in literature in 1946. Das Glasperlenspiel (the Glass Ball Game) is Hesse's most important novel. In the future world, Das Glasperlenspiel would become the system of symbols evolved by the combination of music and mathematics, and it would also become mankind's intellectual and spiritual wealth. Confronted with numerous political wars, mankind was facing devastating threats. In order to propagate this mankind's spiritual wealth, a religious group was making unremitting efforts. Knecht was an orphan raised by this religious group. Because of his outstanding talent and excellent organizing ability, Knecht gradually improved himself, and eventually reached to the top leadership of the group and become a master in Das Glasperlenspiel. But as he aged, he felt that this reclusive spiritual realm could no longer meet his demands and he couldn't make great contributions to his people in this ivory tower. Therefore, he went to the real world, trying to improve the world with education. However, he drowned as he went swimming before his career had even started. Das Glasperlenspiel, written in his old age, is Hesse's masterpiece in which he narrated the stories of his life. The writer took 12 years of hard work to finish this book in which he used various sorts of genres, including poetry, fiction, maxims, mail, biographies, literature theories, and so on. What's more, although these genres play well between each other, each of them plays its own individual role. In the appendix of this book, there are three excellent biographies depicting believers in different countries in different periods of the history. Even though these three biographies look independent in appearance, in essence, they are perfectly intertwined and connected with one another.）