In the ›Book of Penitents‹ (›Buch der Büßer‹), Walter Nigg traces the confusions, fears and problems in the lives of nine famous personalities and shows, through vivid descriptions, that they are the same confusions, fears and problems of modern man. However, he also shows how these can be overcome: by means of insight. On his journey through the centuries, Walter Nigg introduces the reader to extraordinary men and women whose lives can be called exemplary: we encounter Maria Magdalena, a woman whose life initially lacked direction; desert saint Makarius who is called the great; passionate Margareta von Cortona; fiery spirit Savonarola who was fated to die on the pyre; we hear of the thunderous words of de Rancé; take a close-up view of Dostoevsky the prophet; the man who voluntarily demeaned himself: Albert from Poland; God's own adventurer, Charles de Foucauld; and the voice that came out of silence: Simone Weil.