Jean-Paul Sartre

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Description

Jean-Paul Sartre was arguably the most celebrated and written-about intellectual of the twentieth century. He was also one of the most divisive: twenty-five years after his death, his name still provokes revulsion and admiration in equal measure. But who really knew him From early on, Sartre cultivated publicity and transparency as paradoxical shields of his privacy. Through an impressive range of biographical writings, interviews and films, and through the chronicling skills of his life-long companion Simone de Beauvoir, he effectively wrote his life as he was living it.

Reviews

At once a crisp and eminently readable introduction to Sartres thought and works and an exploration of Sartres most sustained act of engagement that of writing this is a valuable slim addition to the two-and-a-half metres of Sartre studies that Leak describes having on his bookshelf. * French Studies *
Writing a short biographical introduction to Sartre is no easy feat, and it would be difficult to top this author's effort . . . Andrew Leaks virtue is to have succinctly encapsulated Sartres personality and core convictions from the midst of the heap left by the Sartrean writing machine. He is sensitive to the intellect in his context, how he responded in his writing, and how scholars have commented subsequently. As such, this is a wonderful addition to the compelling series Critical Lives. * The Historian *

Author Bio

Andrew Leak is Head of the French Department, University College London, Editor of Sartre Studies International, and author of The Perverted Consciousness: Sexuality and Sartre (1989), and Roland Barthes: Mythologies (1994).