Hermann Hesse 
Trees: An Anthology of Writings and Paintings 

*Winner of the American Translators Association Frederick Ungar Award*

An elegant collection of Hermann Hesse’s essays, poems, and passages on the subject of trees and nature, accompanied by thirty-one of his watercolor illustrations.

Hermann Hesse understood trees to be symbols of transcendence and rebirth, of instinctive growth present in all natural life. This elegant collection of his essays, poems, and passages on trees, accompanied by thirty-one of his watercolor illustrations, reveals his inspired thoughts on nature, spirituality, and self-knowledge. Together, his writings and paintings mirror the seasons and landscapes as he experienced them, and help remind us that trees’ annual rings are representations of our own days’ struggle, happiness, and purpose.



In the author’s words: “They struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws . . . Whoever has learned to listen to trees no longer wants to be one. He wants to be nothing except who he is.”

About the author

Damion Searls is a prize-winning translator of fifty books from German, French, Norwegian, and Dutch. Liveright published his translation of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet in 2020.