A brilliant portrait of a beloved and
controversial
figure in twentieth-century spirituality.
Simone Weil (1906-1943) was a writer and
philosopher who devoted her life to a search for
God—while avoiding membership in organized religion. She
wrote with the clarity of a brilliant mind educated in the best
French schools, the social conscience of a grass-roots labor
organizer, and the certainty and humility of a mystic—and
she persistently carried out her search in the company of the
poor and oppressed.
Robert Coles's study of this strange and
compelling figure includes the details of her short, eventful
life: her academic career, her teaching, her political and
social activism, and her mystical experiences. Coles also
analyzes the major themes her life encompassed: her politics,
her Jewish identity, her moral concerns, her intellect, and her
experience of grace. This is the best, most accessible
introduction to the woman who was a spiritual influence on the
life and work of so many, among them T. S. Eliot, Flannery
O'Connor, Adrienne Rich, and Albert Camus.
Robert Coles, M.D., was awarded the
Pulitzer Prize for his five-volume Children of Crisis series.
He is Professor of Psychiatry and Medical Humanities at Harvard
Medical School and the James Agee Professor of Social Ethics at
Harvard University, and is the author of many books, including The Spiritual Life of Children, The Moral Life
of Children, and Dorothy Day: A Radical Devotion.
"Coles is a passionate scholar. He
scours the texts and letters of Weil's brief life and devotedly
finds in them a record of uncommon intellectual
honesty."
—Washington Post
"A book filled with passion and
light.... The legendary Weil—part saint, part literary
genius, part patriot, part mystic—holds a clear
fascination."
—Kirkus Reviews
