Jahnn, Hans Henny (1894–1959)

German playwright and novelist. His plays and novels blend primitive, instinctive eroticism with a belief in archaic, mythological forms of love and death. Pastor Ephraim Magnus 1919 deals with the tension experienced by the artist in conflict with the lusts of the flesh. Medea 1925 also conveys the leaden weight of sensual guilt and illicit drives. His greatest prose work is the unfinished trilogy Fluss ohne Ufer 1949, with its powerful examination of human (homosexual) relationships.

Most of Jahnn's works have met with the threat of censorship because of their radical themes, his audiences and readers being offended by the uncompromising manner in which his characters are involved with brutal and elemental natural forces.

Jahnn was born in Hamburg. He spent the Nazi period in exile in Denmark where, as a farmer, he researched into the artificial insemination of cattle. In music circles he had already acquired a reputation as an organ builder and for rediscovering much baroque church music, but today he is more remembered for his literary work.