Author Description

Jean-Paul Sartre, existentialist philosopher, writer, dramatist and political activist, is regarded as one of the foremost figures in modern French literature and culture. His major works as a writer include Nausea and Roads to Freedom, and as a dramatist, Les Mains Sales. This exciting and accessible collection of essays, from French and American as well as British authors, brings together some of the best contemporary critics of Sartre's literary works. Using a wide variety of modern theoretical and critical approaches, the essays examine Sartre's work as literature, rather than as illustrations of his philosophical treatises. From semiotics to deconstruction, from pragmatics to psychoanalysis, these highly readable essays apply some of the most up-to-date approaches in contemporary critical thinking to Sartre's novels, plays, literary theory and autobiography. Several of the essays deal in different ways with the same text, demonstrating a wide spectrum of critical approach and producing varied but complementary interpretations of the major works.