The Need for Roots

bySimone Weil, Ros Schwartz (Translator), Kate Kirkpatrick (Introducer)

Prelude to a Declaration of Obligations towards the Human Being

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An icon of twentieth-century French philosophy, Simone Weil was described by André Gide as 'the patron saint of all outsiders' and by Albert Camus as 'the only great spirit of our time'. In this, one of her last and best-known works, she offers a vision of what human life could be - where the needs of our bodies are met and the needs of the soul, too, are better known and nurtured.

Written in 1943, when France was occupied and Weil was working in the offices of the Free France in London, The Need for Roots responds to a plea both timely and timeless: what can satisfy the cry of our hearts for justice? In the same decade that saw the UN Declaration of Human Rights, Weil argues that rights alone are inadequate to the task - and encourages her contemporaries not to repeat the mistakes of the French Revolution and the malaise of modern life. The alternative she offers has intrigued and inspired generations of readers since.

A masterpiece … Today it retains an eerie prescience. Looking to the past, Weil spoke to future generations who would feel, as she did, that history is a trap we only half understand … luminous

Madoc Cairns, TLS

About Simone Weil

Simone Weil (1909-43) 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 labourer 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 (two volumes, 1956), Oppression and Liberty (1958) and Selected Essays, 1934-1943 (1962).
Details
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • ISBN: 9780241467978
  • Length: 288 pages
  • Dimensions: 198mm x 17mm x 129mm
  • Weight: 216g
  • Price: £12.99
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