The greatest German prose writer of the 20th century, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Hermann Hesse is known in Russia primarily as the author of “Siddhartha”, “Steppenwolf”, “The Glass Bead Game”, short stories and fairy tales. This book contains critical essays by the classic on world literature, on the fate of books and spiritual values in the 20th century. They are dedicated to the works of writers and philosophers from Germany, Austria, France, England, Russia, as well as Spain and China. A significant part of the texts is published in Russian for the first time.