The Gift of Biography

In her multifaceted, polyphonic essay “The Gift of Biography,” Caroline Stoessinger offers her reader an intimate insight into the emotional substratum of the ineffable bond between the biographer and her subject. The rapport, whose complex texture involves compassion, respect, and attentiveness, unwittingly manifests itself to the reader as the sine qua non condition of an authentic dialogue soon after he or she accepts Stoessinger’s invitation to join her in retracing the history of her friendship with Alice Herz-Sommer, the heroine of her internationally acclaimed book A Century of Wisdom. In the process of the shared recollection, the emotional horizons of the autobiographer and the reader fuse, allowing the latter to sense that the (auto)biography to which she or he has been made privy, has been gifted to them by the author, who has, imperceptibly, become a dear friend. Two selves sharing their inner lives – Herz-Sommer and Stoessinger, Stoessinger and the reader – share the space of authenticity, in which the hope that reverberates through the genius of Beethoven pierces the darkest of nights.