Jean-Paul Sartre French philosopher, writer, playwright and essayist Date of Birth: 21.06.1905 Country: France

Biography of Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) was a French philosopher, writer, playwright, and essayist. He was born in Paris on June 21, 1905. After graduating from the École Normale Supérieure in 1929, he spent the next ten years teaching philosophy in various high schools in France, as well as traveling and studying in Europe. His early works consisted primarily of philosophical studies.

In 1938, he published his first novel, "Nausea" (La Nausée), and the following year released a book of short stories titled "The Wall" (Le Mur). During World War II, Sartre spent nine months in a prisoner-of-war camp and became an active member of the Resistance, writing for underground publications. He published his major philosophical work, "Being and Nothingness" (L'Être et le néant), during the occupation.

Sartre gained recognition as the leader of the existentialist movement and became the most prominent and discussed author in post-war France. Along with Simone de Beauvoir and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, he founded the journal "Les Temps modernes" (New Times). Starting in 1947, Sartre regularly published separate volumes of his essays and literary-critical writings under the title "Situation" (Situations).

Among his most famous literary works are the trilogy "The Roads to Freedom" (Les chemins de la liberté, 3 vols, 1945–1949) and the plays "No Exit" (Huis clos, 1944), set in hell, and "Dirty Hands" (Le Mains sales, 1948). In the 1950s, Sartre collaborated with the French Communist Party. He condemned the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. In the early 1970s, Sartre's consistent radicalism led him to become the editor of a banned Maoist newspaper in France and participate in several Maoist street demonstrations.

Some of Sartre's later works include "The Condemned of Altona" (Les Séquestrés d'Altona, 1960), the philosophical work "Critique of Dialectical Reason" (Critique de la raison dialectique, 1960), and "Words" (Les Mots, 1964), the first volume of his autobiography. He also wrote "The Trojan Women" (Les Troyennes, 1968), based on the tragedy by Euripides, and criticized Stalinism in "The Ghost of Stalin" (Le Fantôme de Staline, 1965) and "The Family Idiot: Gustave Flaubert (1821–1857)" (L'Idiot de la famille, Gustave Flaubert (1821–1857), 3 vols, 1971–1972), a biography and critique of Flaubert using both Marxist and psychological approaches.

In 1964, Sartre declined the Nobel Prize in Literature, stating that he did not want to compromise his independence. He died in Paris on April 15, 1980.