In the shade of a banyan tree, a grizzled ferryman sits listening to the river. Once he was a wandering monk, and briefly, like thousands of others, he followed Gotama the Buddha, enraptured by his sermons. But this man, Siddhartha, was not a follower of any but his own soul. One of the great philosophical novels, Siddhartha is a beautifully written tale of the son of an Indian Brahmin who leaves his family to begin a lifelong journey toward Enlightenment. On the way, he faces the entire range of human experience, living with ascetics, meeting Gotama the Buddha, and learning the art of love from Kamala the courtesan. But none of these brings him the answers he seeks. Finally he is transformed by the simple philosophy of the ferryman Vasudeva, whose wisdom comes not from learned teachings but from observing the River. Herman Hesse, a German-Swiss novelist, poet, and painter, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1946. Newly designed and typeset in a 6-by-9-inch format by Waking Lion Press.