Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy

jostein gaarder paulette moller

A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print.

One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning--but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.

Genres fictionclassicsyoung adultfantasynovelsliteraturecontemporaryphilosophyunfinishedmystery

518 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1991

Literary awards

buxtehuder bulle, premio bancarella, deutscher jugendliteraturpreis, prix des libraires du québec, دار المنى, literaturpreis der jury der jungen leser, prime minister of pakistans award, premio san clemente,

Places

norway,

This edition

Format: 518 pages, Paperback
Published: March 20, 2007 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 9780374530716
ASIN: 0374530718
Language: English

Characters More characters

Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin was an English naturalist who realised that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selec...
Cecilia Skotbu

...
Malaikat Ariel

...
Plato

Plato

Plato (Greek: Πλάτων), born Aristocles (c. 427 – 348 BC), was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms. He raised prob...
Aristotle (philosopher)

A Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoo...
Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas OP (/əˈkwaɪnəs/, ə-KWY-nəs; Italian: Tommaso dAquino, lit. Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian[9] Dominican friar and priest, an influential philosopher and theologian, and a jurist in the tradition of sc...

About the author

jostein gaarder

Jostein Gaarder is a Norwegian intellectual and author of several novels, short stories, and children's books. Gaarder often writes from the perspective of children, exploring their sense of wonder about the world. He often uses meta-fiction in his works, writing stories within stories.

Gaarder was born into a pedagogical family. His best known work is the novel Sophie's World, subtitled "A Novel about the History of Philosophy." This popular work has been translated into fifty-three languages; there are over thirty million copies in print, with three million copies sold in Germany alone.

In 1997, he established the Sophie Prize together with his wife Siri Dannevig. This prize is an international environment and development prize (USD 100,000 = 77,000 €), awarded annually. It is named after the novel.