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The troublesome idealism of Simone Weil

Hailed as ‘an uncompromising witness to the modern travails of the spirit’ , Weil also exasperated those closest to her with her ambitions for heroic self-denial

21 September 2024

9:00 AM

21 September 2024

9:00 AM

Simone Weil: A Life in Letters Robert Chenavier, translated by Nicholas Elliott

Harvard, pp.384, 31.95

The French philosopher Simone Weil, who died of self-starvation and tuberculosis in a Kent sanitorium in 1943 at the age of 34, remains a conundrum. ‘Mais elle est folle!’ had been the spluttering response of Charles de Gaulle the previous year, during her short wartime period analysing reports for the Free French in London.

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