biography
pronunciation:
[vayl]
| sex:
| female
|
| lived:
| (1909–43)
|
| biography:
| Philosophical writer and mystic, born in Paris, France, the sister of André Weil. She taught philosophy in several schools, interspersing this with periods of manual labour to experience the working-class life. In 1936 she served in the Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War. In 1941 she settled in Marseille, where she developed a deep mystical feeling for the Catholic faith, yet a profound reluctance to join an organized religion. She escaped to the USA in 1942 and worked for the Free French in London, before dying from voluntary starvation in an attempt to identify with her compatriots suffering in France. Her posthumously published works include La Pesanteur et la grâce (1946, Gravity and Grace) and Attente de Dieu (1950, Waiting for God). |
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