The Franco-American essayist and literary critic George Steiner, whose reflections embraced a spectrum ranging from religion to music, painting and history, died Monday at the age of 90 at his home in Cambridge, in England. It was his son David Steiner who announced the news to the New York Times.
Born in 1929 in Paris into a Jewish family of Viennese origin, George Steiner taught at the prestigious American universities of Princeton, Yale and New York, as well as in Cambridge and Geneva. His favorite theme was the human ability to write and speak, from which he drew a key work published in 1967, entitled "Speak and be silent".
"A major thinker"
"The great, the subtle, the demanding George Steiner, leaves a vertiginous work, of an iconoclastic erudition, haunted by the monstrosity engendered by the great European culture", reacted on Twitter the writer Jacques Attali, paying homage to " a touching friend, nobly concealing great wounds ":
The great, the subtle, the demanding George Steiner leaves a vertiginous work of iconoclastic erudition, haunted by the monstrosity engendered by the great European culture. He was also a moving friend, nobly masking great wounds.
- Jacques Attali (@jattali) February 4, 2020“With the disappearance of George Steiner, we lose a major thinker. His immense literary scholarship gave happiness to all who read or listen to it, "commented on the same social network the French Minister of Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer:
With the disappearance of George Steiner, we lose a major thinker.
His immense literary scholarship gave happiness to all who read or listen to it.
She also gave keys and lucidity for the analysis of our time: https://t.co/VbF8N7Nybq
According to the New York Times , the writer was also a "divisive figure": "The admirers of Mr. Steiner found his erudition and his arguments brilliant. Critics found it verbose, pretentious and often inaccurate. ”
George Steiner "is a master of the word and one of the rare figures of our time to have a universal knowledge of our time", had declared the former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer while giving him the German Ludwig prize Boerne's criticism and literary essays in 2003. He leaves behind his wife Zara Alice Shakow, a historian of international relations, a son, a daughter and two grandchildren.
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