Letters and Papers from Prison

Author: Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Editor: Victoria J. Barnett

Despite Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s earlier theological achievements and writings, it was his correspondence and notes from prison that electrified the postwar world six years after his death in 1945. The materials gathered and selected by his friend Eberhard Bethge in Letters and Papers from Prison not only brought Bonhoeffer to a wide and appreciative readership, especially in North America, they also introduced to a broad readership his ideas of religionless Christianity, his open and honest theological appraisal of Christian doctrines, and his sturdy, if sorely tried, faith in the face of uncertainty and doubt.

This splendid volume, in some ways the capstone of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works series, presents the full array of Bonhoeffer’s prison letters and theological writings from 1943 to 1945. Using the acclaimed English translation and adapted to a more accessible format, this new edition features supplemental material from Victoria J. Barnett and an insightful introduction by John W. de Gruchy to clarify the theological meaning and social importance of Bonhoeffer’s prison writings.

Paperback

614 pages