Simone Weil

the long version

"Francine du Plessix Gray's biography of the Marquis de Sade, At Home with the Marquis de Sade was hailed by New York Times Book Review as a "boldly imaginative retelling" of his life and garnered the critically acclaimed author a Pulitzer Prize nomination. In Simone Weil, du Plessix Gray vividly evokes the life of an equally complex and intriguing figure. A patriot, mystic, and activist, a pampered intellectual who believed in the redemptive value of manual labor, an ascetic who craved sensuous beauty, the daughter of a secular Jewish family who yearned to enter the Catholic Church, Simone Weil died at the age of thirty-four after a long struggle with anorexia. But her tremendous intellectual legacy foreshadowed many of the twentieth century's great changes and continues to influence religious thought today. Du Plessix Gray's biography traces Weil's transformation from privileged Parisian student to union organizer, activist, and philosopher, as well as the complex evolution of her ideas on Christianity, politics, and sexuality. This biography illuminates an enigmatic figure and early feminist whose passion and pathos will fascinate a wide audience."--BOOK JACKET.