Carl Djerassi November 18, 2008

Four Jews on Parnassus – A Conversation (Columbia), with illustrations by Gabriele Seethaler, is a biography of four intellectual giants – Walter Benjamin, Theodor W. Adorno, Gershom Scholem, and Arnold Schönberg - written as a debate between the four on Jewish identity, the making of history, and the desire for immortality, with emphasis on Paul Klee’s Angelus Novus (1920), a canonized work that resonated deeply with them.

Carl Djerassi, novelist, playwright, and emeritus professor of chemistry at Stanford University, is one of the few American scientists to have been awarded both the National Medal of Science (for the first synthesis of an oral contraceptive) and the National Medal of Technology. He has published an autobiography, a memoir, a collection of short stories, a poetry chapbook, five novels, and eight plays that have been staged all over the world.

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