Letter to D: A Love Story

By Andre Gorz and Julie Rose

'You're 82 years old. You've shrunk six centimetres, you only weigh 45 kilos yet you're still beautiful, graceful and desirable' – so begins André Gorz's 'open love letter' to the woman he has lived with for 58 years and who lies dying next to him.

As one of France's leading post-war philosophers, André Gorz wrote many influential books, but nothing he wrote will be read as widely or remembered as long as this simple, passionate, beautiful letter to his dying wife.

In a bittersweet postscript a year after Letter to D was published, a note pinned to the door for the cleaning lady marked the final chapter in an extraordinary love story. André Gorz and his terminally ill wife, Dorine, were found lying peacefully side by side, having taken their lives together. They simply could not live without one another.

An international bestseller, Letter to D is the ultimate love story – and all the more poignant because it's true.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Aug 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9780745680903

Andre Gorz

Lisa Sewell is a poet, editor and professor. She is currently a professor of creative writing at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. She is the author of four books of poetry and is also the co-editor of North American Women Poets in the 21st Century, American Poets in the 21st Century and Eleven More American Women Poets in the 21st century: Poetics Across North America.

Reviews for Letter to D

[flydodofly · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Geschichte einer lebenslanger Beziehung, aus der Sicht des Philosophes der an seine kranke Frau, seine Unterstützerin und Freundin schreibt. Die Verbindung zwischen den beiden hat sich über die Jahre so entwickelt und verstärkt, da war eine einseitige Fortsetzung gar nicht denkbar. Als einzige Möglichkeit bot sich eine gemeinsame Beendigung des Lebens, und diesen Weg sind sie dann auch konsequent gegangen.

[edwinbcn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Letter to D. A love letter is a love letter. D. is Dorine, the loving partner, wife, of A., André. It is not a romantic love letter between young lovers, but a meditation on 58 years of marriage.André Gorz (1923 – 2007) was a prominent French intellectual, a social philosopher, and journalist, founder of Le Nouvel Observateur in 1964.In 2007, André and Dorine Gorz commited suicide. She was aged 82, he was 84 years old. They could not bear the idea that one of them would pass away first, leaving the other behind, alone.Letter to D. A love letter reads like a short biography. In this ego document, Gorz looks back on the 60 years they spent together, from getting to know each other, to courtship, and a loving marriage that lasted for 58 years. They look back, mostly on the career of André Gorz, focussing on the high-lights. The booklet describes how they did things together, the key people they met and which important decisions they made in their lives.It is not a political or scientific testament, although the emphasis on the technocriticism and ecology as the outcomes of their career, seems to give the book more significance, as if offereing the readers a suggestion or consideration for the future.The English translation of Letter to D. A love letter is published with an afterword by the translator, Julie Rose, and "Notes for the Reader" listing all major personae listed in the book with a brief biography and main publications. Besides some of the most obvious, such as Sartre, Blanchot, Camus, De Beauvoir, Giles Deleuze, Marcuse, Merleau-Ponty, lLévi-Strauss and Benny Lévy, who played an important role in the formation and early philosophy of Gorz, there are references to robert laponche, Ivan Illich, Pierre-Félix Guattari, Jean Jaurès, Jacques Ellul, Günther Anders and Charles Apothéloz, who were key figures in his development towards a new future for political economy and political ecology.Rather than a short biography or synopsis of a life, Letter to D. A love letter can be read as a coda: it might teach the reader what was the inevitable outcome of a life, it's compass needle pointing from Existentialism, to Marxism, then, to the New Left, and finally to technocriticism and political ecology.Read the book as a fingerpost.

[andrewblackman · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

D is the André Gorz’s 82-year-old, terminally ill wife, and this short book is a letter written to her about a year before they both committed suicide at the same time, unable to bear the thought of being parted.It’s a beautiful story, augmented by a few lovely photos of the couple (I wanted more, actually). The telling is often very beautiful and poignant, although occasionally it’s surprisingly long-winded for such a short book, particularly in the parts where he’s examining some hurtful lines he wrote about her in his first book The Traitor. It almost feels sacrilegious to criticise him after all that emotional backstory, but that was my reaction. Another problem I had was that although it’s a letter to D, most of the book is about A, André Gorz. D is praised a lot, but mostly for the way she helped him in his career or in his existential struggles. I didn’t get much sense of what she wanted out of life, other than to be with him.That said, the beauty outweighs the problems. And Gorz was one of France’s leading 20th-century intellectuals, so there’s plenty of interesting history about intellectual life in mid-century Paris, 1968 etc. Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre figure quite prominently. I related to the couple’s early struggles to be true to their ideals while coping with the practicalities of paying the rent. I liked the way that, over the decades, Gorz came to understand what was truly important in his life, and to let go of so many of the other things that seemed important but weren’t.In short, it was an excellent book, but not quite the emotional love-letter I had expected. It’s a love-letter written by a philosopher, emotional in places but mostly analytical and contemplative. I read it in one sitting late at night, and would definitely recommend it to others.

[seldombites · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Letter to D is a touching look at a couple's life together, spanning half a century. The love Andre feels for his beloved wife Dorine comes through, loud and clear, in every word he has written. Even people who don't usually enjoy romance novels (and I count myself amongst this number) cannot help but be captivated by the depth of feeling contained in this open letter from a man to his dying wife. This novel is all the more poignant for the events which followed. Letter to D is a definite must-read.