Curated playlist
Burials at Montparnasse Cemetery
- Eugène IonescoEugène Ionesco began a theater revolution by studying an English textbook at age 40.
- Jean-Paul SartreJean-Paul Sartre asked to be dropped as a Nobel nominee, then won anyway. His 1964 letter went unread.
- Charles BaudelaireCharles Baudelaire never reached India, yet he told stories of riding elephants there.
- Émile DurkheimÉmile Durkheim came from eight generations of rabbis, yet argued religion was social, not divine.
- Pierre-Joseph ProudhonPierre-Joseph Proudhon was the first person known to call himself an anarchist, and many consider him the father of anarchism. He reached that title through the printing trade, having taught himself Latin so that he could print books in…
- Samuel BeckettSamuel Beckett once drove a young André the Giant to school. The future wrestler was a boy in rural France then.
- Simone de BeauvoirSimone de Beauvoir's partnership with Sartre began on a bench outside the Louvre.
- Henri PoincaréHenri Poincaré won a royal prize for a problem he did not solve. His entry still revealed the first chaotic system.
- Jean BaudrillardJean Baudrillard wrote on an old typewriter and never at the computer. He insisted that a computer is not "merely a handier and more complex kind of typewriter", and he wanted what he called a "physical relation to writing". The habit…
- Éric RohmerÉric Rohmer wore a false moustache to the New York premiere of one of his films.
- François GérardFrançois Gérard painted for Napoleon, then for the kings who replaced him. He served both regimes as court painter.