Erudite, respectable writer Gustav Aschenbach lives a life of structured routine. One day, as he puzzles over his stubborn writer's block, Aschenbach has a dazzling vision that leaves him with a restless urge to abandon his settled life and travel south to Venice.

On checking into his hotel, Aschenbach notices a young Polish boy of perfect, sculptural beauty: Tadzio. As he lingers on at the hotel, Aschenbach falls into an ever-deeper infatuation with the youth, whose curled blond hair and porcelain face fill him with rapture. Ignoring whispered warnings of a cholera outbreak in the city, Aschenbach chooses to stay close to Tadzio, his mind swirling with mad desire.

Classical in structure yet roiled by disturbing passion, Death in Venice is an enormously powerful story of one man's undoing.