Hannah Arendt

‘Thomas Meyer draws on newly discovered archival materials to fashion a meticulous tribute to Arendt’s intellectual passion and to the personal courage of such a trailblazing, free-spirited woman’ Independent
‘Meyer has searched diligently through archives in Paris, Amsterdam, Heidelberg, Jerusalem and elsewhere to provide hitherto unknown details about Arendt’s family history, her work for refugees and her struggles with the authorities over emigration to the United States’ Literary Review
‘Thomas Meyer has succeeded in writing a completely surprising biography of an intellectual icon, bringing us closer than ever before to her painful struggle for the lives of others’ Peter Neumann, Die Zeit
‘Hannah Arendt, one of the most vital philosophers of the twentieth century, gets the vital biography she has long deserved. Deeply researched and smartly written, this is an important history that, like Arendt’s own work, is all but certain to stand the test of time’ Jonathan Eig, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for King: A Life
‘Here is Arendt as we’ve never seen her before — full of questions and wonder at a world as cruel as it is captivating. The iconic thinker is, at long last, neither saint nor villain; she is finally human, contradictions and all’ James McAuley, author of The House of Fragile Things
‘No person interested in Arendt’s work should miss this book’ Liliane Weissberg, editor of the critical edition of Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess
‘This thoroughly documented yet elegantly written and deftly translated biography would have pleased its subject to no end — not because it is hagiographic, but because it respects the limits of archival research and allows its subject to remain elusive’ Michael Zank, author of Jerusalem: A Brief History

Thomas Meyer

Born in 1966 in Bernkastel-Kues, Thomas Meyer specializes in modern German philosophy and the history of ideas. His writing has appeared in leading publications such as Die Zeit, Suddeutsche Zeitung, and Judische Allgemeine. He has published extensively on Ernst Cassirer, as well as on Jewish philosophy and theology. His 2006 biography of Cassirer was nominated for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize. His most recent works include Uber Palastina, which he edited. He is the editor of the twelve-volume studienausgabe (2020-2025) of Hannah Arendt’s German writings.

Shelley Frisch

Shelley Frisch’s translations from German, which include biographies of Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Franz Kafka, and a dual biography of Marlene Dietrich and Leni Riefenstahl, along with many other works of fiction and nonfiction, have been awarded numerous translation prizes. Frisch has chaired the Helen & Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize jury since 2015. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

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