Les Temps Modernes: Paris mourns passing of the intellectual left’s bible
Journal founded by Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre closes after 74 years
Simone de Beauvoir called its Sunday afternoon editorial meetings “the highest form of friendship”, but after 74 years Les Temps Modernes, the monthly journal she founded with Jean-Paul Sartre, has closed.
The death of its last editor, Claude Lanzmann, last July made the decision by its French publisher, Gallimard, to shut the magazine almost inevitable. Lanzmann, an early contributor and student of Sartre, had taken up the baton from De Beauvoir, a former lover, when she died in 1986. His passing broke the magic circle of history. Besides, who could today measure up to those three intellectual heavyweights?