Culture | In search of lost times

The death—or reinvention—of the French intellectual

An inquiry at the old haunt of Sartre and de Beauvoir

|PARIS

Left Bank: Art, Passion and the Rebirth of Paris, 1940-1950. By Agnès Poirier. Henry Holt; 352 pages; $30. Bloomsbury Publishing; £25.

The End of the French Intellectual: From Zola to Houllebecq. By Shlomo Sand. Verso; 304 pages; $29.95 and £20.

This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “In search of lost times”

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