The 102-year-old French philosopher Edgar Morin has published an autobiographical novel, originally written in 1946, after revising it and making it available to the public on June 5th.
L'année a perdu son printemps (The Year Lost its Spring) was published by Paris-based publishing house Denoël, and "sheds light on the psychological, intellectual, and political construction of one of the greatest thinkers of our time," according to the publisher in its presentation of the book.
Edgar Morin initially wrote the story when he was only 25 years old, describing the life of protagonist Albert Mercier, with whom Morin shares many similarities.
"I didn't show it to anyone," he writes the author in the preface. "I knew I was intelligent enough to work in the the field of social sciences, but wasn't sure about my talent as a writer. Moreover, I didn't want to hurt or upset my parents."
For a long time, Morin thought that he had lost the manuscript, but decades later incomplete drafts and typewritten pages were found in his archives, and subsequently given to the Institute for Contemporary Publishing Archives (Imec) in 2001.
Second novel
Edgar Morin and his editor then worked to reconstruct coherence and missing passages. "I began to love this novel, including its writing," recounts the author.
L'année a perdu son printemps is his second novel. The first, The Island of Luna (published in 2017 by Actes Sud), was also written at a younger age and later re-discovered. And it also features Albert Mercier as protagonist.
Morin was bor Edgar Nahoum in Paris, in 1921. He studied history, geography, and law at the University of Paris.
During World War II, he joined the French Resistance and adopted the pseudonym "Morin." His writing career started after the war, and continues until today.
Morin became one of France's well-known philosophers, famous for his interdisciplinary approach where he integrated ideas from various fields to understand complex systems, developing the concept of "complex thought" which emphasizes the interconnectivity of different elements and rejects simplistic, reductionist approaches to understanding reality.
He published memoirs Lessons from a Century of Life in 2021, and a year later Let's Wake Up, a call to arms against the dangers threatening humanity. In 2023 he published the geopolitical essay War to War: From 1940 to Ukraine.
Morin was asked to preside over the book festival "Livre sur la Place," to be held in the eastern French city of Nancy from September 13 to 15 this year.
He will then be 103 years old.
(With newswires)
