Júlia da Silva Bruhns (August 14, 1851March 11, 1923) was a German-Brazilian writer. She was the wife of the

Lübeck Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the stat ...

senator and

grain merchant The grain trade refers to the local and international trade in cereals and other food grains such as wheat, barley, maize, and rice. Grain is an important trade item because it is easily stored and transported with limited spoilage, unlike other ...

Johann Heinrich Mann, and also mother of writers

Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novella ...

and

Heinrich Mann Luiz Heinrich Mann (; 27 March 1871 – 11 March 1950), best known as simply Heinrich Mann, was a German author known for his Social criticism, socio-political novels. From 1930 until 1933, he was president of the fine poetry division of the ...

Biography

Júlia, a

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

, was born in

Paraty Paraty (or Parati, ) is a preserved Portuguese colonial (1500–1822) and Brazilian Imperial (1822–1889) municipality with a population of about 43,000. Indeed, the name "Paraty" originates from the local Guaianá Indians' Indigenous Tupi l ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, the daughter of a German farmer Johann Ludwig Herman Bruhns and Brazilian Maria Luísa da Silva, the daughter of a Portuguese immigrant and a lady who also had South American Indigenous blood. Júlia's father owned several

sugar cane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fibrous stalks t ...

plantations A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...

between Santos and

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

. Her mother died in childbirth at 28 when Júlia was six. She had three brothers and one sister. One year after her mother's death, her father decided to send his children back to Germany. They lived in

, where Júlia had an uncle. At six, Julia didn’t speak a word of German. She stayed in a

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exten ...

until she was 14 years old, while her father was back in Brazil caring for the farms. After the death of her husband and as consequence of a bladder surgery, Júlia went to live in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

with her children. She wrote an autobiographical work called ''Aus Dodos Kindheit'', in which she described her idyllic childhood in Brazil. Her sons Heinrich and Thomas created characters inspired by her in several of their books, referring to her

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

n blood and passionate artistic temperament. Thomas Mann describes Júlia as "

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

- Creole Brazilian". In ''

Buddenbrooks ''Buddenbrooks'' () is a 1901 novel by Thomas Mann, chronicling the decline of a wealthy north German merchant family over the course of four generations, incidentally portraying the manner of life and mores of the Hanseaten (class), Hanseatic ...

'' she was the inspiration for Gerda Arnoldsen and Toni Buddenbrook. In '' Doktor Faustus'', she became the wife of Senator Rodde. In ''

Tonio Kröger ''Tonio Kröger'' () is a novella by Thomas Mann, written early in 1901, when he was 25. It was first published in 1903. A. A. Knopf in New York published the first American edition in 1936, translated by Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter. Plot summary T ...

'', she was the mother, Consuelo. In ''

Death in Venice ''Death in Venice ''(German: ''Der Tod in Venedig'') is a novella by German author Thomas Mann, published in 1912. It presents an ennobled writer who visits Venice and is liberated, uplifted, and then increasingly obsessed by the sight of a Poli ...

'', she appears as the mother of the protagonist, Gustav von Aschenbach.

Personal life

She married Thomas Johann Heinrich Mann in 1869. She was 17, he 29. They had five children:

Heinrich Heinrich may refer to: People * Heinrich (given name), a given name (including a list of people with the name) * Heinrich (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name) *Hetty (given name), a given name (including a list of peo ...

(Luís),

Thomas Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the Ap ...

(Paulo), Julia (Elisabeth Therese/Lula), Carla (Augusta Olga Maria), and Viktor (Carl). Her two daughters both committed suicide: Carla poisoned herself in 1910, and Lula hanged herself in 1927.

Death

In her later years Júlia moved frequently and lived mostly in hotels. She died in a hotel room in

Weßling Weßling is a municipality in the district of Starnberg in Bavaria, Germany. History Weßling was first mentioned in the 13th century, when it was passed to Seefeld Castle. In 1810 it was recorded to consist of 37 farms and in 1877 to have a ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

, watched over by her three sons.

Biography

Personal life

Death

See also

Further reading