From Budapest to Paris (1936–1957)

This book is a searching reflection by one of the important philosophers of our time upon his own life and identity, interwoven with history, religion and culture. Born in 1936 in Budapest, Miklos Veto was a firsthand witness and protagonist of the great events of the twentieth century: as a child he lost his parents during the Holocaust, and then took part in the anti-Soviet Revolution of 1956, after which he escaped through Yugoslavian refugee camps and arrived in France. At the age of seventeen, he encountered Catholic faith through an intense spiritual experience. After studying at the Sorbonne in Paris and in Oxford, Veto undertook an academic career which spanned three continents, teaching at Yale and other universities in the United States, becoming director of the Department of Philosophy of the University of Abidjan (Ivory Coast), and settling back in France, with his wife and three children. He never lost contact with his native Hungary, where his contribution was recognized after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and in 2008 he was named exterior member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. This autobiography presents especially the founding period of Veto's life, with a "postface" on the last sixty years.