Writers from Blois

René Jean-Marie-Joseph Guénon (15 November 1886 – 7 January 1951), also known as Abdalwahid Yahia (Arabic: عبد الـوٰاحد يحيیٰ; ʿAbd al-Wāḥid Yaḥiā), was a French-Egyptian intellectual who remains an influential figure in the domain of metaphysics, having written on topics ranging from esotericism, "sacred science" and "traditional studies" to symbolism and initiation.
In his writings, he claims to hand down eastern religious traditions and adapt them to western readers "while keeping strictly faithful to their spirit".Initiated into Islamic esotericism from as early as 1910 when he was 24, he mainly wrote and published in French, and his works have been translated into more than twenty languages; he also wrote in Arabic an article for the journal Al Marifah.

Marguerite Claude Françoise Xenakis (née Gargouïl; 27 September 1930 – 12 February 2018) was a French novelist and journalist, born in Blois, Loir-et-Cher. She started her literary career in the early 1960s, and became better known during the 1980s, when she started working at Le Matin de Paris, a daily newspaper, and for Télématin, a breakfast television news show. She chaired the judging panel for the literary prize 30 Million Friends.
In 1953, she married Iannis Xenakis, who later went on to become an important classical composer of the post-war avant-garde. Their daughter Mâkhi Xenakis, sculptor and painter, was born in 1956.

Pierre Rosanvallon (born 1 January 1948) is a French historian and sociologist. He was named a professor at the Collège de France in 2001, holding the chair in modern and contemporary political history.
His works are dedicated to the history of democracy, French political history, the role of the state and the question of social justice in contemporary societies.

Philippe Ariès (French: [filip aʁjɛs]; 21 July 1914 – 8 February 1984) was a French medievalist and historian of the family and childhood, in the style of Georges Duby. He wrote many books on the common daily life. His most prominent works regarded the change in the western attitudes towards death.