Curated playlist
French literary critics
- Eugène IonescoEugène Ionesco began a theater revolution by studying an English textbook at age 40.
- Denis DiderotJailed writer Denis Diderot annotated Paradise Lost with a toothpick and ink made from slate and wine.
- Jean-Paul SartreJean-Paul Sartre asked to be dropped as a Nobel nominee, then won anyway. His 1964 letter went unread.
- Victor HugoVictor Hugo asked for a pauper's funeral and got the largest in French history.
- Michel FoucaultMichel Foucault's surgeon father expected him to become a surgeon too. He became a leading thinker on power instead.
- Simone de BeauvoirSimone de Beauvoir's partnership with Sartre began on a bench outside the Louvre.
- Georges BatailleGeorges Bataille's secret society Acéphale never found an executioner. Every member had agreed to be the victim.
- Jacques LacanIn 1963, psychoanalysts stripped Jacques Lacan of the right to train new analysts.
- Roland BarthesRoland Barthes was walking home through the streets of Paris on the 25th of February 1980 when the driver of a laundry van knocked him down. A month later, on the 26th of March, he died from the pulmonary complications that followed. He…
- Gabriel MarcelGabriel Marcel wrote at least thirty plays, but readers kept turning to his philosophy.