Jacques Derrida

He met and befriended Althusser (who taught him) on his first day as a student in Paris; Hyppolite, Foucault and Ricoeur also taught him, while Serres and Bourdieu were fellow-students. Blanchot, a close friend, was one of his influences. Jabès invited Derrida and Celan to lunch together, so the two could meet properly. De Man, Cixous, Lyotard and Deleuze were among his friends and intellectual colleagues (though revelations of de Man’s pro-fascist past proved unsettling). He gave funeral orations for his friend Lévinas, for Gadamer and for Althusser (Derrida had been his only permitted prison-hospital visitor).