Weil, Simone
Weil, Simone ( 1909 – 43 ),French essayist and thinker. Equally independent in her life and her work, she devoted herself to resisting the oppression inherent in organized institutions and to achieving identification with the sufferings of its victims. Although an agrégée de philosophie, she worked for a year on the shop floor of the Renault factory, joined the International Brigade in 1936 , and after the outbreak of war found employment as a farm servant. Broken by her voluntary privations, and suffering from tuberculosis, she died in England where she had been engaged by the provisional French government. Her moral intellectual authority became generally apparent only posthumously. Le Pesanteur et la grâce ( 1947 ), L'Attente de Dieu ( 1950 ; Waiting on God, 1951 ), and Cahiers ( 1951 – 6 ) have earned her a unique respect for their intensity of thought, their moral commitment,...
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