Constantin von Barloewen is a famed philosopher and anthropologist but his own life is not only a novel: it is a real saga. Born in Buenos Aires, his parents had fled the Nazi government, and his subsequent childhood was spent between Latin America, Germany and France. He was made professor honoris causa by several universities including Harvard and Princeton, and has worked all his life to bridge the gap between different cultures. This book, Au risque de la vie philosophique, attempts to show that the sharing between cultures, people and thoughts is not just a personal passion that is put to the test by existence but a fundamental question of our time in the face of a loss of sacredness and the advances in technology. Through talks with Gala Naoumova, a world famous Russian anthropologist, the author shares with us (alphabetically) the wide diversity of human experience, through stories he has collected from all four corners of the earth, in which we encounter friendship and faith in a still humane world.

Constantin von Barloewen was born in 1952 in Buenos Aires. He is now the Academic Director for Dialogue between Cultures and Civilisations of the Schloss Neuhardenberg Foundation in Berlin, as well as member of the Advisory Board of the Harvard Academy (Harvard University). He has written about 15 books including Le Livre des Savoirs – interviews with 15 Nobel prizewinners, published by Grasset in 2007, and already in the process of being translated into more than 8 languages.

Gala Naoumova, originally from Russia but of German nationality, is an anthropologist and writer who lives in Paris. For the past 17 years, she has been working for intercultural dialogue on big international projects like "the Visual Library of the Millennium". She is the author of several books including the biography of Catherine the Great, Taiga transes, Voyage initiatique au pays des chamans sibériens (Calmann-Lévy, 2002).