Partner Severo Sarduy
Queer Places:
36 Rue Claude-Joseph Bonnet, 69004 Lyon, France
François Wahl
(May 13, 1925 - September 15, 2014) was a French philosopher and publisher.
Among the gay Argentines in Paris was the novelist
Severo Sarduy, who
was living with François Wahl, the wealthy proprietor of Editions du Seuil,
and working as the Spanish-language acquisitions editor at Seuil.
At the age of eighteen, François Wahl lost his father, administrator of Galeries Lafayette, who died in deportation to Auschwitz after being denounced as a Jew in 1943. His father, Paul Wahl, was born on February 1, 1874 in Chalons-sur-Marne. His last address was at 36 rue Claude Joseph Bonnet in Lyon, the city where he was arrested. He was deported by Convoy No. 60, dated October 7, 1943, from the Drancy Camp to Auschwitz. He was 69 years old. In June 1944, François Wahl joined the maquis and then returned to Paris at the Liberation, and met Élie Wiesel, of whom he was the professor of philosophy. He campaigned until 1948 for the creation of the State of Israel within the Stern Group.. At the end of his studies in Paris, he obtained the aggregation of philosophy. In 1957, he joined the Éditions du Seuil, where he founded with Paul Ricœur the collection "L'Ordre philosophique" in 1966. He contributed to the promotion of structuralism by publishing Roland Barthes and Jacques Lacan. In 1991, he decided to cease all editorial activity to devote himself to writing. Five years later, he published Introduction au discours du tableau. In September 2007, he published his second book, Le Perçu, a work in which he revives the great phenomenological tradition (Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty) and extends the dialogue with his friend Alain Badiou. Despite Wahl's historical role in the intellectual influence of the house, Éditions du Seuil refused Le Percev, arguing that it was too large (800 p.), while maintaining the publication of Martin Heidegger's letters to his wife Elfride (Ma chère petite âme, "L'ordre philosophique", October 2007, 524 p.). This refusal led to the resignation of Alain Badiou and Barbara Cassin, who had been running the "L'ordre philosophique" collection since Wahl's retirement. This collaboration then continued at Fayard with the new collection "Ouvertures", of which Le Percev is the first title.
Philosopher by training, companion of the Cuban writer Severo Sarduy, pillar of the editions of Le Seuil where he was, between 1957 and 1990, the editor of Jacques Lacan, Françoise Dolto, Paul Ricoeur, Roland Barthes, Philippe Sollers, Alain Badiou, Jean-Claude Milner, Christian Jambet, Carlo Emilio Gadda, Italo Calvino, friend of Michel Foucault and Paul Veyne, François Wahl died on September 15, 2014, in his house in Avilly-Saint-Léonard near Senlis (Oise), where he had retired to write and work.
My published books:
