Synopses & Reviews
Jean-Paul Sartre dominated the cultural and literary life of post-war France, gathered a large following for his philosophy of existentialism and over-shadowed the work of his equally brilliant partner Simone de Beauvoir.
Synopsis
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) dominated the cultural and literary life of post-war France. He believed from an early age that he had a mission to be a writer and proceeded to realize this as a novelist, philosopher, screenwriter, playwright, literary and art critic, biographer, essayist, polemicist and journalist. Although before the Second World War, Sartre showed little inclination to become involved in politics, from 1945 he established himself as the very personification of intellectual commitment, taking public positions on national and international political issues from the Liberation until very shortly before his death. In this new biography, David Drake considers the works of France's most famous twentieth-century intellectual, his relations with his contemporaries, and the political causes he espoused, all of which the author firmly locates in the turbulent times through which Sartre lived.
Synopsis
Accessible and affordable illustrated biography
About the Author
David Drake is Emeritus Reader at Middlesex University and Maitre de conferences associe at the Institut d'etudes europeennes, Paris VIII University. He is president of the UK Society for Sartrean Studies and has written numerous articles and given conference papers on Sartre in Britain, France, North America and China.