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The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg
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Letters from the heroic German revolutionary to her comrades, friends and lovers
The most comprehensive collection of letters by Rosa Luxemburg ever published in English, this book includes 190 letters written to leading figures in the European and international labor and socialist movements–Leo Jogiches, Karl Kautsky, Clara Zetkin and Karl Liebknecht–who were among her closest friends, lovers and colleagues. Many of these letters appear for the first time in English translation; all help to illuminate the inner life of this iconic revolutionary, who was at once an economic and social theorist, a political activist and a lyrical stylist. Her political concerns are revealed alongside her personal struggles within a socialist movement that was often hostile to independently minded women. This collection will provide readers with a newer and deeper appreciation of Luxemburg as a writer and historical figure.
Reviews
One cannot read the writings of Rosa Luxemburg, even at this distance, without an acute yet mournful awareness of what Perry Anderson once termed ‘the history of possibility.’
Transports us directly into the private world of a woman who has never lost her inspirational power as an original thinker and courageous activist ... [and] reveals that the woman behind the mythic figure was also a compassionate, teasing, witty human being.
She emerges as one of the most emotionally intelligent socialists in modern history, a radical of luminous dimension whose intellect is informed by sensibility, and whose largeness of spirit places her in the company of the truly impressive.
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[W]onderful ... The self-portrait in these pages is that of a professional revolutionary whose vocation is, if you’ll pardon the expression, spiritual. Reading ... this book, I could not help falling in love with you, dear Rosa.
, Bookforum -
Paced almost like a novel, the 28 years covered by this collection pass by almost too quickly.
, Jewish Daily Forward -
The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg is a ... kind of memorial, a kind of sliver of one woman’s life bound together in one place ... Rosa Luxemburg comes alive in these pages ... if you love or admire or are just fascinated by [her], then you’ve no excuse not to buy this excellent book.
PopMatters -
This huge project is long overdue. Luxemburg’s correspondence reveals an extraordinary range and breadth of concerns and interests
Times Literary Supplement -
Rosa goes on being our source of fresh water in thirsty times.
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Intrepid, incorruptible, passionate and gentle. Imagine as you read between the lines of what she wrote, the expression of her eyes. She loved workers and birds. She danced with a limp. Everything about her fascinates and rings true. One of the immortals.