ARTICOLI / 8 / Paola di Cori /
The experience of meeting the stranger highlights how every human relationship consists of Sarah Kofman (1934-1994) has been one of the most brilliant French philosophers of her generation. She was a highly acclaimed interpreter of Freud and Nietzsche and published more than 30 books and many articles on art, psychoanalysis, literature and the philosophical tradition from Socrates to Derrida. She was reknown for her independent thought, her humorous nature, feminist stance and her ability in drawing and painting. She often lectured in the United States and Switzerland and her books have been translated in several languages. She studied with Hyppolite and Deleuze, and taught at the Sorbonne University in Paris from 1970 onwards. She was close to Derrida, Nancy and Lacoue-Labarthe, and worked with them for 20 years creating an important editorial series – «Philosophie en effet», for the Galilée publisher. She was a child under the Vichy régime in Paris; her father – a rabbi of Polish origins – was deported and died in Auschwitz, her 5 brothers and sisters were dispersed in various refuges in the countryside, while Sarah and her mother spent the years of the nazi occupation in hiding. She wrote on this tragic infancy in her last book – Rue Ordener, rue Labat; soon after the publication of the book she committed suicide.
