Being and Nothingness

Sartre, Jean-Paul

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0517101858 ISBN 13: 9780517101858

Publisher: Gramercy Books, 1994

An informative introduction to Sartre and his philosophy and a key to special terminology enhance a handsome edition of Sartre's classic study of modern existentialism.

Review:

"There can be no doubt that this is a philosophy to be reckoned with, both for its own intrinsic power and as a profound symptom of our time."

About the Author:

Born in Paris in 1905 Jean-Paul Sartre was one of the great philosophers of the twentieth century and a renowned novelist, dramatist, and political activist. As a teenager Sartre was drawn to philosophy after reading Henri Bergson’s Time and Free Will, earning a degree in philosophy in Paris at the École Normale Supérieure in 1929. His first novel La Nausée, which Sartre considered one of his best works, was published in 1938. Sartre served as a meteorologist in the French army before being captured by German troops in 1940, spending nine months as a prisoner of war. After his release, he was involved in the resistance movement before publishing his great trilogy of novels, Les Chemins de la Liberté. In 1964, Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature but declined it. During the events of 1968 he was arrested for civil disobedience but swiftly pardoned by President Charles de Gaulle, who said ‘you don’t arrest Voltaire’. He died on 15 April 1980 in Paris, his funeral attracting an enormous crowd of up to 50,000 mourners. He is buried in Cimitière de Montparnasse in Paris.