Jacques Derrida

Jackie Derrida (1930–2004) was born into a Sephardic Jewish family in El Biar, Algiers. During World War II, under Vichy anti-Semitic decrees, he was expelled from his Algiers lycée, an experience of exclusion that profoundly shaped his skepticism of rigid metaphysical systems and nationalism. He studied at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, teaching there for decades.

In 1967, Derrida burst onto the world philosophical stage with three monumental books: Of Grammatology, Writing and Difference, and Speech and Phenomena. He pioneered 'Deconstruction'—revealing the internal contradictions, binary hierarchies, and instability of Western philosophical texts. In his later years, he wrote movingly of his Algerian childhood in Monolingualism of the Other.