Description
Dramatic Dialogue. Memoir. Disability Studies. Self-help. Philosophy & Spirituality. Essay. Theater. Translated from the French by Michael Eskin. Foreword by Matthieu Ricard. Alexandre Jollien, who is the first and only major thinker and spiritual teacher in the history of philosophy to have been born with cerebral palsy, tells the story of how he grew up in a home for the severely disabled and was destined to roll cigars; how he discovered philosophy, which changed his life forever, helping him to confront his fate, endow it with meaning, and turn his disability into a source of strength and creative energy; how, against all odds, he fought his way out of the home and into high school and university, where as an undergraduate he wrote IN PRAISE OF WEAKNESS... Imbued with human warmth and wisdom, this modern Socratic dialogue is a poignant testament to the inestimable value of friendship, the power of imagination, and the will to overcome. A book that inspires and gives courage.
"Alexandre Jollien proves that despite being born severely disabled it is still possible ... to construct a personality, build a family, and, most astonishingly of all, to become a philosopher, whose body of work has already been translated into German, Spanish, Italian and Japanese ..." —L'Express
"... a remarkable philosophical work, concise and joyful ... a message delivered from another realm ..." —Libération
"IN PRAISE OF WEAKNESS ... takes a fresh and insightful look at the nature of difference and the adaptive capacity of man." —The Irish Times
Author Bio
Born with cerebral palsy, Alexandre Jollien grew up in a home for the severely disabled, where, as he laconically notes, "rolling cigars" was his "professional horizon." But then, completely by chance, he discovered philosophy, and his life was changed forever. Against all odds, he succeeded in completing secondary education and enrolled at the Université de Fribourg. While studying abroad at Trinity College, Dublin, he met his future wife, with whom he has three children. He published his first book—IN PRAISE OF WEAKNESS—at the age of twenty-two, and has since established himself as a profound and compelling moral thinker and spiritual teacher. Not only is he the first and only congenitally severely disabled thinker in the history of philosophy, but he is also the first original philosopher to have consistently reflected on what it means to be born and live with disability not as an insurmountable obstacle but as a source of strength and creative energy.
Author City: LAUSANNE SWI