Hannah Arendt

We are still coming to terms with the controversial figure of Hannah Arendt. Interlacing her life and work, this book is an elegant, sophisticated biography brimming with historical and philosophical insight. Julia Kristeva traces Arendt's intellectual journey in the context of her personal life, emphasizing her commitment to recounting lives and narration. She explores Arendt's biographical essay on Rahel Varnhagen and reflects on the philosopher's views on Judaism, anti-Semitism, and the "banality of evil." Drawing on fragments of Arendt's correspondence with her longtime lover Martin Heidegger and her husband Heinrich Blucher, excerpts from her mother's diary, and passages from Arendt's philosophical writings, this is a luminous account of an essential thinker.