Simone Weil

Simone Adolphine Weil ( ; ; 3 February 1909 – 24 August 1943) was a French philosopher, mystic, and political activist. Since 1995, more than 5,000 scholarly works have been published about her, including close analyses and readings of her work.

After her graduation from formal education, Weil became a teacher. She taught intermittently throughout the 1930s, taking several breaks because of poor health and in order to devote herself to political activism. Such work saw her assisting in the trade union movement, taking the side of the anarchists known as the Durruti Column in the Spanish Civil War, and spending more than a year working as a labourer, mostly in car factories, so that she could better understand the working class.

Weil became increasingly religious and inclined towards mysticism as her life progressed. She wrote throughout her life, although most of her writings did not attract much attention until after her death. In the 1950s and '60s, her work became famous in continental Europe and throughout the English-speaking world. Her thought has continued to be the subject of extensive scholarship across a wide range of fields.

The mathematician André Weil was her brother. Provided by Wikipedia