A Life in Letters

by Simone Weil, Robert Chenavier (editor), Andre A. Devaux (editor)

The inspiring letters of philosopher, mystic, and freedom fighter Simone Weil to her family, presented for the first time in English.Now in the pantheon of great thinkers, Simone Weil (1909–1943) lived largely in the shadows, searching for her spiritual home while bearing witness to the violence that devastated Europe twice in her brief lifetime. The letters she wrote to her parents and brother from childhood onward chart her intellectual range as well as her itinerancy and ever-shifting preoccupations, revealing the singular personality at the heart of her brilliant essays.The first complete collection of Weil’s missives to her family, A Life in Letters offers new insight into her personal relationships and experiences. The letters abound with vivid illustrations of a life marked by wisdom as much as seeking. The daughter of a bourgeois Parisian Jewish family, Weil was a troublemaking idealist who preferred the company of miners and Russian exiles to that of her peers. An extraordinary scholar of history and politics, she ultimately found a home in Christian mysticism. Weil paired teaching with poetry and even dabbled in mathematics, as evidenced by her correspondence with her brother, André, who won the Kyoto Prize in 1994 for the famed Weil Conjectures.A Life in Letters depicts Simone Weil’s thought taking shape amid political turmoil, as she describes her participation in the Spanish struggle against fascism and in the transatlantic resistance to the Nazis. An introduction and notes by Robert Chenavier contextualize the letters historically and intellectually, relating Weil’s letters to her general body of writing. This book is an ideal entryway into Weil’s philosophical insights, one for both neophytes and acolytes to treasure.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

384 pages, Hardcover

Published August 27, 2024

About the author

Simone Weil was a French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist. Weil was born in Paris to Alsatian agnostic Jewish parents who fled the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany. Her brilliance, ascetic lifestyle, introversion, and eccentricity limited her ability to mix with others, but not to teach and participate in political movements of her time. She wrote extensively with both insight and breadth about political movements of which she was a part and later about spiritual mysticism. Weil biographer Gabriella Fiori writes that Weil was "a moral genius in the orbit of ethics, a genius of immense revolutionary range".

Reviews

[Sofia Celeste · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley and Highbridge audio for an Audiobook ARC of this book!

This is a must read/listen for fans of Simone Weil. While having some knowledge of the work of Simone Weil may be helpful before picking up this title, it is definitely not necessary. These letters offer an intimate glimpse into the relationships and concerns of Weil during her life.

I would highly recommend picking up this title!

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received this as an advanced reader audiobook from Netgalley. my 2 start rating has more to do with my lack of interest in Simone Weil than of anything the author did. I'm an avid letter writer so I was very interested in hearing her personal correspondences, but I knew barely anything about her when I requested the book. I think I was aggravated by her personality and communication styles at various times. On the other hand, I loved hearing about some of her well known contemporaries.

[Anne Fenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Useful to get a better idea of Simone the person. Her philosophical writings are not something I’ve read. I was interested in who she was, apart from being a French thinker of note. French activist women really take a strong part in the society of their time. The French educational system with its emphasis on forming thoughts in deep and methodical ways seems to support this.