Robert Zaretsky "The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas"

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, the intellectual historian Dr Robert Zaretsky chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about his choices while crafting The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas. Known as the ‘patron saint of all outsiders’, Simone Weil was one of the 20th century’s most remarkable thinkers, a philosopher who truly lived by her political and ethical ideals.

Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:

• Why Robert Zaretsky chose the title: The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas


• Why Simone’s ideals and philosophies are so relevant today, 80 years after her death


• How Robert grasped Simone’s thinking and behaviour given her contradictory, paradoxical character that baffled her many biographers


• Why Robert crafted a hybrid of biography and philosophy


• Why he explored Simone’s philosophies and search for truth through the prism of her life rather than crafting a traditional biography


• Why he structured the book around five chapters that present Simone’s core philosophies


• How he portrayed Simone’s ideas with clarity and grace, given her enigmatic character, behaviour and philosophies


• The literary devices he employed to craft sensitive, compelling and lyrical narrative


• How Robert challenged the myths surrounding Simone Weil.