Born in 1925
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The May 1948 issue of Les Temps Modernes published three short essays entitled "Nés en 1925." The young authors were Jean-François Lyotard, who was to become a philosopher of international distinction; Paul Viallaneix, his generation's outstanding Michelet scholar; and Pierre Gripari, the author of a wide variety of works including popular books for children. They had been comrades (along with the future sociologist Alain Touraine), at the khâgne of the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, which prepared a student elite to compete for entrance into the École normale supérieure. Their contributions reflected the experience of an intense traditional education under the pressures of war and the Occupation. Their subsequent careers reveal the relation of the permanent stamp of a common formation and the individual experience of particular circumstances.