The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt: A Tyranny of Truth

By Ken Krimstein

'A genre-breaking insight into one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century' Stylist's Emerald Street

'Incredible' Deborah Levy

A hero of political thought, the largely unsung and often misunderstood Hannah Arendt is perhaps best known for her landmark book, The Origins of Totalitarianism.

Arendt led an extraordinary life. Having endured Nazi persecution firsthand, she fled across Europe, coming to live in a world inhabited by such luminaries as Marc Chagall, Marlene Dietrich, Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud. She ultimately sacrificed her unique genius for philosophy and her love of a much-compromised man – the philosopher and Nazi-sympathiser Martin Heidegger – for what she called 'love of the world'.

Strikingly illustrated, this compassionate and timely biography illuminates the life of a complex, controversial, deeply flawed yet irrefutably courageous woman whose experiences and writings shine a light on how to live as an individual and a public citizen in troubled times.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Oct 18, 2018
• ISBN: 9781526603722

Ken Krimstein

Ken Krimstein has published cartoons in the New Yorker, Punch, the Wall Street Journal, and more. He is the author of The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt, which won the Bernard J. Brommel Award for Biography and Memoir, and was a finalist for the Jewish Book Award and the Chautauqua Prize, and also of Kvetch as Kvetch Can. He lives and writes and draws in Evanston, Illinois.

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Reviews for The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt

[bell7_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hannah Arendt may not be well-known outside of the philosophical world, but she had a huge impact on how we understand the world, including coining a word that we use on a regular basis. This graphic novel blends nonfiction biography and makes it somewhat fictionalized by writing as if Hannah's speaking to the reader and talking about her life. It touches on her controversial relationship with an apparent Nazi sympathizer. The "three escapes" bring an interesting structure to the story, as she endures Nazi persecution and ultimately moves to the United States. She was friends with many well-known people in the philosophical and arts worlds, and footnotes give the reader a brief biography of each of these folks, again as if Hannah herself was writing them and making comments about their Jewish backgrounds or other snippets of information. An author's note at the end details both Arendt's writings and biographies that a reader could use to learn more about her. This biography gives a nuanced look at a complex woman.

[jessethek-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Shaggy drawings evoke this global thinker. Fascinating: can’t judge its accuracy. Doesn’t bring the specific magic of comics to its topic.

[albertgoldfain · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

By turns presents panel after panel of thinkers thinking and the sudden escapes demanded by wartime Europe. Arendt deserves a large readership, but I'm not sure the graphic novel treatment will provide the impetus.

[villemezbrown · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

OMG, the name dropping! The first half of the book is less a story of Arendt than a list of every famous person she ever met. Talk about defining a woman by the men in her life! During the second half this slows down a little bit, but the author still seems pretty intent on mentioning every famous person of Jewish descent who lived during the twentieth century, shoehorning in Lou Reed and Jerry Lewis among others in footnotes and cameos, and, sure, I'd read that book if he cared to go all in on it, but I thought this was supposed to be about Arendt.So, knowing nothing about Arendt when I picked this book up, I don't feel like I really know much more about her actual philosophy having made it through to the end, not even when another character seemed to mansplain her philosophy and significance right to her face in the final pages. Indeed, throughout, more emphasis seems to be given to her relationship with Martin Heidegger than any of her individual accomplishments, sort of reducing her to girlfriend status in her own bio.