About the book
Written as seven letters to a friend, De l’âme returns to a difficult question: how can we speak about the soul today without falling back on ready-made answers?
Cheng moves between personal experience, poetry, philosophy and spiritual reflection, exploring the soul’s relationship with the body, beauty, love, death and human presence. The French original appeared in 2016.
About the author
François Cheng, born in China in 1929, moved to France in 1948. A poet, novelist, translator and essayist, his work brings Chinese and Western traditions into conversation. He was elected to the Académie française in 2002.
Author biographyWhy this book
What drew me to this book was its combination of simplicity and depth. Cheng makes room to speak again about the soul, death, beauty, love and the meaning of presence.
It can be serious without becoming academic, and poetic without hiding in obscurity. That quality mattered to me in bringing it to Persian readers.
Publication record
- Status
- Revised edition forthcoming
- Publication
- Autumn 1405 SH (2026)
- Language
- Persian
- Publisher
- Farhang-e Gharar
- Translator
- Ehsan Afshar
- Reference edition
- Über die Schönheit der Seele · C.H.Beck