Curated category
Writers from Paris
- Voltaire"This is no time to make new enemies." Those words are attributed to Voltaire on his deathbed, when a priest urged him to renounce Satan.
- Jean-Paul SartreJean-Paul Sartre was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature, and he refused it. He said a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an…
- Eugène BurnoufEugène Burnouf died on the 28th of May 1852, the same year his translation of the Lotus Sutra finally appeared in print.
- Charles BaudelaireCharles Baudelaire was born in Paris on the 9th of April 1821, into a city that would both inspire and consume him. His father was a senior civil servant and…
- André GideAndré Paul Guillaume Gide was born in Paris on the 22nd of November 1869, and by the time he died on the 19th of February 1951, his New York Times obituary…
- Jean GenetJean Genet spent his first seven months in the care of a prostitute mother before she placed him for adoption, and from that beginning he built one of the…
- Jean-Luc GodardJean-Luc Godard once said: "A film consists of a beginning, a middle and an end, though not necessarily in that order." That line, delivered with the offhand…
- Esther DufloEsther Duflo was born on the 25th of October 1972 in Paris, and by the age of 46 she had become the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in…
- Claude Lévi-StraussClaude Lévi-Strauss died on the 30th of October 2009, at the age of 100, and for four days the world did not know. When French President Nicolas Sarkozy…
- Simone de BeauvoirSimone de Beauvoir did not consider herself a philosopher, and at the time of her death in 1986 the world did not call her one either.
- Georges BatailleGeorges Bataille was born on the 10th of September 1897 in Billom, a small town in the Auvergne region of France, and by the time he died on the 8th of July…
- Jacques LacanJacques Marie Émile Lacan, born on the 13th of April 1901 in Paris, became the most controversial psychoanalyst since Freud.
- Alexis de TocquevilleAlexis de Tocqueville sailed to the United States in 1831 on a narrow assignment. The July Monarchy had sent him to examine American prisons and…
- François CatrouFrançois Catrou was born in Paris on the 28th of December 1659, the son of a man who served as secretary to Louis XIV himself.
- Victor DuruyJean Victor Duruy entered the world on the 10th of September 1811 in Paris. His father worked as a factory worker and expected his son to follow that trade.
- Gabriel MarcelGabriel Honoré Marcel was born on the 7th of December 1889 in Paris, and by the time he died on the 8th of October 1973 he had written more than a dozen…
- Jules MicheletJules Michelet died on the 9th of February 1874, in the southern French town of Hyères, from a heart attack. He left behind nineteen volumes of French…
- George SteinerFrancis George Steiner was born on the 23rd of April 1929 in Neuilly-sur-Seine near Paris. His right arm withered from birth yet his mother insisted he use…
- George CœdèsGeorge Cœdès was born in Paris on the 10th of August 1886, and by the time he died on the 2nd of October 1969, he had done something few scholars manage: he…