French Literature Reviews - 2026

B. Chantre, The Last Days of René Girard
Philosophy, Anthropology and Ideas

The Last Days of René Girard
Benoît Chantre

Publication date: 12/10/2016 Publisher: Grasset ISBN: 978-2-246-86231-4 EAN: 9782246862314 Format: Hardcover Presentation: Paperback No. of pages: 235 p.

René Girard passed away in the week preceding the November 13, 2015 terrorist attacks. He had written: "Essential violence strikes back at us in a spectacular way, not only in historical terms, but also on the level of knowledge." The author of Violence and the Sacred is no prophet of doom. His thought gives shape and meaning to our future. We must listen to his voice once again. I had to respond to the shock of these intertwined events: the death of a mentor and friend, and the horrors in Paris.

These two realities form an enigma where the invisible confronts the monstrous, the secret confronts the sacred, and elegance confronts obscenity. They compelled me to evoke the "last days": those of René Girard and the end of times he conceptualized in his work. Many have misinterpreted his pessimism. The foretelling of the world's dismantling revealed less of a romantic's melancholy than the Kingdom glimpsed on a summer evening in Avignon or within the fragrant silence of Stanford.

I wanted to bring to life this fundamental advocate of non-violence with whom I worked for fifteen years—a man who was witty and discreet, and whose hope was profound. The spoken word is alive. His voice, alongside those of the texts he so brilliantly interpreted, endures. The Gospels, Shakespeare, Stendhal, and Proust will long retain for me the cadence of the French Midi.

Benoît Chantre is a publisher, a member of the Imitatio Foundation (San Francisco), and president of the Association Recherches Mimétiques. He is the author of several books of interviews (including *Achever Clausewitz* with René Girard, *Le Choix de Pascal* with Jacques Julliard, and *La Divine Comédie* with Philippe Sollers) as well as an essay on Charles Péguy (*Péguy point final*, Le Félin, 2014), and has published numerous articles on Bergson, Girard, Levinas, and Simone Weil. He is currently writing a biography of René Girard.

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René Girard is widely recognized for his contributions to modern literary criticism, anthropology, and philosophy, particularly through his exploration of mimetic desire and the sacred origins of cultural violence. His intellectual engagement spans canonical literary texts, from the Gospels and Shakespeare to Stendhal and Proust, applying a theoretical framework to human culture and conflict. Readers interested in contemporary French thought and the intellectual legacy of twentieth-century philosophy may find this volume a relevant reflection on these enduring themes.

Benoît Chantre approaches the subject through a personal lens shaped by a longstanding collaboration with the thinker, capturing both the private personality and the public intellectual. The volume touches upon the interpretation of literary masterpieces alongside the somber realities of contemporary historical events and the conceptual framework of the end of times. By contextualizing these elements within Girardian theory, the text addresses the perceived pessimism of his later writings while emphasizing a message of hope and non-violence. Scholars and readers exploring modern literary theory and intellectual history will encounter a perspective on a major twentieth-century figure.

An article on this work can be read on nonfiction.fr, along with an interview with the author.