Paul Léon and the Republic of Letters

Who exactly was James Joyce's Paris friend, Paul Léon, and how should he be remembered? This article identifies Léon's significance as a 1930s Paris intellectual and author. It outlines the three main contributions made to the Republic of Letters by this thinker of Russian Jewish origin, a stateless post-Revolution refugee to Western Europe. There were, first of all, his prolific and highly significant scholarly publications on the philosophy and sociology of law, particularly the law governing states. Then there were his soon-to-be published letters of witness from the two Nazi concentration/transit camps in France whence he was deported to his death in Auschwitz-Birkenau. And finally there was his work — with and around James Joyce — as a literary translator, mediator, and passeur.