The Letters of Benjamin

The most complete collection of Benjamin's letters. These moving letters reveal the evolution of his thought while also providing an intimate picture of Benjamin and his times.
◆Collaborated by 20th-century German-Jewish thinker Gershom Scholem and famous German philosopher Theodor W. Adorno.
◆Jin Xiaoyu’s latest translation vividly presents Benjamin’s natural and extraordinary letter-writing style.
◆More than 330 precious letters, spanning 30 years, bear witness to the friendship, loneliness and pure will of a generation of geniuses during their years of exile.
◆The spiritual journey of the last European intellectual, the eternal traveler on the threshold, and the only true critic of German literature.
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This collection of letters contains over 300 letters by the German thinker Walter Benjamin, edited, chronologically compiled, and annotated by Scholem and Adorno. It showcases Benjamin's profound knowledge and unique literary style, reveals the evolution of his thought, and offers insights into his relationships with thinkers and figures of his time. It is a valuable reference for understanding European culture and intellectual figures in the first half of the 20th century.
In this collection of letters, Benjamin discusses literature, intellectual trends, creation, social life, travel, work, and life. Reflections on Kafka permeate the book, and the most important thinkers of the 20th century, including Gerhard Scholem, Theodor Adorno, Hannah Arendt, Bertolt Brecht, Rainer Maria Rilke, Ernst Bloch, Karl Kraus, and Martin Buber, all make appearances. A new generation of readers can immerse themselves in the vanishing world of German-Jewish intellectuals.
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Benjamin was a great letter writer, clearly passionate about his writing. Despite two wars, Hitler's Reich, and exile, many of his letters have survived... Letters became a form of literature for him.
Letter writing simulates a kind of vitality within the rigid medium of words. In it, one can deny isolation and yet remain alienated, alone.
—Theodor W. Adorno These letters take us through the years when Benjamin was completely withdrawn, even invisible, to the period when he was active as a writer and journalist.
—Gershom Scholem Even the more casual and momentarily optimistic contents of these letters are shrouded in a profound sadness. They were sent at a time when Europe was in the grip of a nightmare... Yet, in its own right, this is a delightful book. It celebrates the elixir of intellectual passion—the capacity of the human mind and nervous system to indulge in abstract speculative interests, even or especially in the face of personal adversity and sorrow.
—George Steiner, The New Yorker
The relationship between Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem is undoubtedly one of the most extraordinary friendships of the 20th century. Benjamin, a critic, and Scholem, a historian, were not only foremost innovative thinkers who transformed the intellectual landscape of their respective fields, but they also engaged in a quarter-century-long struggle over intellectual and spiritual questions that remain pressing today. Despite their divergent life paths, despite the most soul-testing historical circumstances, the moral fiber of their friendship, at a human level, proved resilient and tenacious. The correspondence between Benjamin and Scholem was written out of an unyielding loneliness—not complete isolation, but the loneliness of genius, as they bucked the tide of their times and put forward "radical demands" that political reality could not satisfy...
—Robert Alter, The New Republic

2024-08-01

光启书局

New Thinking

864

9787545220117