A Life in Letters

A Life in Letters - Paperback

$27.95
$27.95
Skip to product information
A Life in Letters
  • A Life in Letters
A Life in Letters - Paperback

A Life in Letters - Paperback

by Simone Weil
$27.95
$27.95

Book Overview

by Simone Weil (Author), Robert Chenavier (Editor), André 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. Assembled here, the letters she wrote to her parents and brother from childhood onward chart her intellectual range as well as her itinerancy and shifting preoccupations, revealing the singular personality at the heart of her brilliant essays.
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. A 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.

The first complete collection of Simone Weil's missives to her family, A Life in Letters vividly illustrates her thought taking shape as she joins the Spanish struggle against fascism and the transatlantic resistance to the Nazis. An introduction and notes contextualize the letters historically and intellectually, providing an ideal entryway into Weil's treasured philosophical insights.
Number of Pages: 384
Dimensions: 0.99 x 8.91 x 5.74 IN
Publication Date: June 16, 2026
ISBN9780674304949
Author Simone Weil
PublisherBelknap Press
GenreNews & politics, Religion & spirituality, and Literature
FormatPaperback
PublishedJune 2026
LanguageENG- English
Pages384
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

Related Subjects

Literary Collections Nonfiction Political Science

1% fer Each of the Seven Seas

Every purchase sends 7% of our profits to The Ocean Cleanup. No fine print, no opt-in — just how we sail.

Whoever Ye Be, Welcome Aboard

Queer lit, music, art, philosophy, fiction — stories for every kind of soul. Come as ye are, matey.

More by Simone Weil

The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Obligations Towards the Human Being

The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Obligations Towards the Human Being - Paperback

The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Obligations Towards the Human Being - Paperback

By Simone Weil

About Simone Weil

Simone Weil Simone Weil (1909-1943) was a French political activist, mystic, and a singular figure in French philosophy. She studied at the elite École Normale Supérieure, obtained her agrégation (teaching diploma) in philosophy in 1931, worked at Renault from 1934 to 1935, enlisted in the International Brigades in 1936 and worked as a farm laborer in 1941. She left France in 1942 for New York and then London, where she worked for General de Gaulle's Free French movement. Most of her works, published posthumously, consist of some notebooks and a collection of religious essays. They include, in English, Waiting for God (1951), Gravity and Grace (1952), The Need for Roots (1952), Notebooks (2 vol., 1956), Oppression and Liberty (1958), and Selected Essays, 1934-1943 (1962).

You may also like