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.