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    Simone Weil

    SimoneWeil
    Born in 1909 to a Jewish family in Paris, Simone Weil had a privileged childhood. An academic prodigy, she left a teaching career to become a factory worker in order to better feel and know the afflictions of the working class. Though drawn to pacifism, she went to Spain to fight the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War. An agnostic, her hunger for beauty, virtue, and goodness was fed by her conviction that anyone can enter “the kingdom of truth” if only “he longs for truth and perpetually concentrates all his attention on its attainment.” She never conceived of the possibility of a “real contact, person to person, here below, between a human being and God” until one day “Christ himself came down and took possession of me.” Though she would remain religiously unaffiliated her entire life, the reality of this experience never left her. Simone Weil fled France when the Nazis invaded and joined the French resistance in London. In solidarity, she committed to eating the same rations as the men at the front. During the summer of 1943, she contracted tuberculosis and, weakened by malnourishment, she died within weeks.  Read Full Biography

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    Acclaim

    • Weil’s thought is bound to Christian faith, yet she moves fluidly through her diverse influences in theology and philosophy. Because of this, Weil remains a woman of many paradoxes. Love in the Void acknowledges that and invites us to explore it more closely…. We see ourselves in her intellectual lucidity, spiritual intoxication, and courage.

      The New Criterion

    • An exciting encounter with an extraordinary mind.

      Booklist

    • An excellent introduction to Weil’s writings and also a valuable guide and stimulus for cultivating a life in which intellectual and spiritual honesty are inseparable, and in which the difficulty of attaining them is seriously confronted. It is ideal for classroom use, for introducing a friend to Weil, or for revisiting her long after an earlier encounter to be reminded why she is such a compelling and challenging interlocutor.

      Mark Shiffman, Front Porch Republic

    • Love in the Void is a reminder to neophytes and the experienced alike that Weil’s writing is meant to be concrete, accessible, and useful – more than simply ideas to ponder, but an invitation to change our lives. Plough has done an admirable job in assembling a condensed version of Weil’s most pertinent writing. This is Weil burned down to her essentials.

      Scott Beauchamp

    • In this intellectually and spiritually demanding sampler, philosopher and Christian mystic Simone Weil (1909–1943) addresses love, beauty, suffering, and idolatry…. Weil combines aphorisms and perceptive observations to lead readers into “the void,” “the dark night,” where suffering “puts a little seed in us” and inspires questions about the afterlife. This beguiling book is a fine introduction to Weil’s work.

      Publishers Weekly