Jacques Lusseyran 
Against the Pollution of the I 
On the Gifts of Blindness, the Power of Poetry, and the Urgency of Awareness

Despite being blinded as a child, Jacques Lusseyran went on to help form a key unit of the French Resistance — and survive the Nazis’ Buchenwald concentration camp. He wrote about these experiences in his inspiring memoir
And There Was Light. In this remarkable collection of essays, Lusseyran writes of how blindness enabled him to discover aspects of the world that he would not otherwise have known. In “Poetry in Buchenwald, ” he describes the unexpected nourishment he and his fellow prisoners found in poetry. In “What One Sees Without Eyes” he describes a divine inner light available to all. Just as Lusseyran transcended his most difficult experiences, his writings give triumphant voice to the human ability to see beyond sight and act with unexpected heroism.

Circa l’autore

Jacques Lusseyran (1924–1971) was blinded at age seven, formed a Resistance group at age seventeen, and endured fifteen months at Buchenwald. He went on to teach at Case Western University in the United States and died in a car accident during a visit to France.