Jean Grenier, a Writer and a Teacher: DE

Jean Grenier, known for the role he played as an inspiration and mentor to Albert Camus, was a philosopher by profession. But this subtle and curious mind, an enemy of all totalitarian thought (Essay on the Spirit of Orthodoxy), was also interested in Eastern traditions (The Spirit of the Tao) and the fine arts (The Spirit of Contemporary Painting, Art and Its Problems-he, in fact, ended his career as a professor of Aesthetics at the Sorbonne); he published two novels; and his lyrical meditations on subjects such as the moment and the void are classics of the genre (The Islands, Mediterranean Inspirations). In the 1930s, Grenier was part of Jean Paulhan's NRF team. This biography draws on previously unpublished archives to bring to life not only a remarkable man and a rich body of work, but an entire era.