It is only with Adomo's move to California at the end of 1941 that his letters to his parents start arriving once more,reporting on work and living conditions as well as on friends, acquaintances and the Hollywood stars of his time.

My dears: tnls is out a Drlet note to welcome you to the new world, where you are now no longer all too far away from us. So begins Adorno's letter to his parents in May 1939, welcoming them to Cuba where they had just arrived after fleeing from Nazi Germany at the last minute. At the end of 1939 his parents moved again to Florida and then to NewYork, where they lived from August 1940 until the end of their lives. It is only with Adomo's move to California at the end of 1941 that his letters to his parents start arriving once more,reporting on work and living conditions as well as on friends, acquaintances and the Hollywood stars of his time. One finds reports of his collaborations with Max Horkheimer, Thomas Mann and Hanns Eisler alongside accounts of parties,clowning around with Charlie Chaplin, arm ill-fated love affairs. But the letters also show his constant longing for Europe:Adorno began to think about his return as soon as the USA entered the war.Adorno's letters to his parents-surely the most open and direct letters he ever wrote -not only afford the reader a glimpse of the experiences that gave rise to the famous Minima Moralia but also show Adorno from a previously unknown, very personal side. They end with the first reports from the ravaged Frankfurt to his mother - who remained in New York-and from Amorbach, his childhood paradise.

Editors'Foreword

Letters

  1939

  1940

  1941

  1942

  1943

  1944

  1945

  1946

  1947

  1948

  1949

  1950

  1951

Index