FontanaAlso published in Fontana Books Simone Weil ‘WAITING ON GODGATEWAY TO GOD Simone Weil was born in Paris on February 3rd, 1909. She qualified as a teacher of philosophy in 1931, Between teaching posts she worked in the Renault car factory and in the vine~ yards. She also spent some time with the Spanish Repub- ican Army on the Catalonian front and experienced the com- plete invasion of her inner life by the horror of war. In 194.1 she went to live in the south of France, where she worked in the fields while continuing her study of Greek and Hindu philosophy and enlarging her knowledge of Sanskrit, kn 1942, after reaching America, she was called to serve the French provisional Government in England, She prepared for them a long study of the reciprocal duties of the individual and the State, later to become famous in English as The Need Jor Roots. She died in 1943, her illness aggravated by her re- fusal to eat anything more than was given to her compatriots in Occupied France,