Thomas Mann, Violet Trefusis

Born: Thomas Mann (1875), Violet Trefusis (1894)

Born on this day

The Nobel laureate of “Buddenbrooks” and “Death in Venice” was a married father of six – and his diaries reveal a lifelong desire for men.

Her passionate affair with Vita Sackville-West inspired Virginia Woolf’s “Orlando” – and she wrote novels in English and French.