Bernard-Henri Lévy is a French philosopher and one of the most esteemed and bestselling writers in Europe. Lévy is the author of over 30 books, including works of philosophy, fiction, and biography. American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville was a New York Times bestseller (2006). His new book, Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism will be published by Random House on September 16, 2008.

He gained renown for his documentary film about the Bosnian conflict, Bosna! After starting his career as a war reporter for Combat — the legendary newspaper founded by Albert Camus during the Nazi occupation of France — for which he covered the war between Pakistan and India over Bangladesh. Lévy is also the founder of the New Philosophers group. His 1977 book Barbarism with a Human Face launched an unprecedented controversy over the European left’s complicity with totalitarianism. Lévy’s cultural commentary, novels and journalism have continued to stir up such excitement that The Guardian noted he is ‘accorded the kind of adulation in France that most countries reserve for their rock stars.’

Lévy has undertaken several diplomatic missions for the French government. He was appointed by French President Jacques Chirac to head a fact-finding mission to Afghanistan in 2002 in the wake of the war against the Taliban, a war that Lévy supported. He has traveled to the world's most troubled areas. He followed the trail of Daniel Pearl in Pakistan to research his "investigative novel" Who Killed Daniel Pearl? His book War, Evil, and the End of History took him to the sites of what he calls the world's forgotten wars, from Colombia to Sri Lanka. His reportage and commentary from Israel during the 2006 Lebanon war appeared to wide acclaim, in among others, the New York Times Magazine. And after an extensive, clandestine visit to Darfur in 2007, he reported on the ethnic cleansing and genocide there for Le Monde, and for the U.S. The New Republic.


"[BHL is] superman and prophet: we have no equivalent in the United States." - Vanity Fair

"Bernard-Henri Lévy does nothing that goes unnoticed. He is an intellectual adventurer who brings publicity to unfashionable political causes." - The New York Times


Photo by Alexis Duclos.

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