Weil, Simone (1909-1943)

French writer who became a practising Catholic after a mystical experience in 1938. Apart from essays, her works (advocating political passivity) were posthumously published, including Waiting for God (1951), The Need for Roots (1952), and Notebooks (1956).

She worked for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, and during World War II worked briefly for the Free French leader General de Gaulle in London, where she lived. In sympathy with her country's plight, she refused to eat more than the official rations available in France. Malnutrition led to tuberculosis, and she went into a sanatorium in Ashford, Kent, dying shortly afterwards.