Of
Nils Minkmar
The figure of this seventy-three-year-old Frenchman can be recognized from afar: a tight black suit, his now white hair like a carelessly braided wreath around his narrow skull, a few strands have come loose and are flapping loosely in the wind. He looks like he’s freezing and walks unsteadily through a deserted Ukrainian landscape in which he, the elegant man of the world, doesn’t really fit. Lévy is one of the best-known French, a wealthy man and philosopher of immense diligence who has visited many theaters of war and written countless books, films and articles. He now seems to be haunted by something less tactical or political than something deeper, the question posed by writer Bruce Chatwin and dreaded by all travelers: What am I doing here?