Fabrice Hadjadj

Fabrice Hadjadj (born 1971 in Nanterre) is a French philosopher and writer working within the contemporary Catholic tradition. His books focus chiefly on technology and on the embodied nature of the human being, and his output ranges across essays, plays and religious reflection.

He was born to Jewish parents of Tunisian descent who had embraced Maoist ideas. As a teenager and young man he described himself as an atheist and anarchist, holding a nihilistic outlook for much of his twenties until he converted to Catholicism in 1998. His first published work, Objet perdu (1995), was a nihilist-inspired collective that included contributions from Michel Houellebecq. His later essays turned to salvation, technology and the body, drawing on Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Heidegger, Lévinas and Günther Anders.

A central theme of his thought is a mysticism of the flesh, in which sexual embodiment is not an obstacle to spiritual life but its concrete setting. Works such as Réussir sa mort and Le Paradis à la porte mix essay with a paradoxical, often narrative style. He teaches philosophy and literature in Toulon and in 2014 was named a member of the Pontifical Council for the Laity. His influence is felt mainly among Catholic readers and critics of technological culture.