Walter Benjamin's Ark: A Departure in Biography (Comparative Literature and Culture)

The first-ever exploration of the curious life of Stefan Rafael Benjamin, Walter Benjamin’s only son. Walter Benjamin’s Ark rereads the life and work of the German philosopher and critic through the life of his estranged son. With this innovative biography, John Schad not only brings to light the intriguing figure that is Stefan Rafael Benjamin, but also identifies him as that most crucial of Benjaminian specters, namely, the secret “you” or addressee of his father’s writings. In the process, he brings Walter Benjamin into a series of unlikely dramatic dialogues with Virginia Woolf, Rosa Luxemburg, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gertrud Kolmar, Oscar Wilde, Franz Kafka, and Hamlet.