J'ai choisi la vie

Description

The voice of a woman of her century, marked by erudition, elegance, and independence.

These conversations between Monique Lévi-Strauss (born in 1926) and Marc Lambron provide an opportunity for a rich and abundant exchange. An eminent researcher and intellectual, she accompanied her husband on his major travels, proofread his writings, and was closely involved in his various research projects. Here she recounts aspects of her rich life, lived squarely in her century: a life shared for fifty-five years with Claude Lévi-Strauss, each nevertheless retaining their intellectual independence and their own areas of reflection.

It is also an opportunity for her to revisit some poignant and intimate moments in her life. The daughter of a Jewish mother whose father forced her to live in Germany from 1939 to 1945 under the Third Reich, she experienced Gestapo raids; they finally returned to France in 1945. Her American mother then took her to New York; it was on her return from the United States that she met Claude Lévi-Strauss at the home of Jacques Lacan, who was a close friend of hers.

She also discusses the humanities and structuralism that shaped her thinking, and recounts her ethnologist husband's expeditions around the world, as well as the major events of the 20th century and the early 21st century.

Monique Lévi-Strauss and Marc Lambron also reveal their mutual understanding in a free-flowing intellectual exchange, a stroll between two minds, a dialogue between two aesthetes, where their shared interests-art, literature, science, and world events-come to life in their well-informed conversation.