Search results for ""author jean-paul sartre""

“Everyone is free here. . . . The cities are open. They are open to the world and to the future. That is what gives them all an air of adventure; and . . . a kind of touching beauty.” So wrote the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre on a 1945 trip to the United States during which he crossed the country and dove deep into the soul of the American city. In this new volume, Sartre’s reflections on the distinctly American quality of cities in the United States are accompanied by Pedro Meyer’s photographs of American cities, offering similarly sharp insights, but through a different historical lens: that of the late eighties and early nineties. Together, the photographs and essays articulate the enduring essence of American urban existence—its relationship with time, with labor and humanity, and with the open spaces emblematic of America.

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Originally published in 1958, The Question is the book that opened the torture debate in France during Algeria’s war of independence and was the first book since the eighteenth century to be banned by the French government for political reasons. At the time of his arrest by French paratroopers during the Battle of Algiers in June of 1957, Henri Alleg was a French journalist who supported Algerian independence. He was interrogated for one month. During this imprisonment, Alleg was questioned under torture, with unbelievable brutality and sadism. The Question is Alleg's profoundly moving account of that month and of his triumph over his torturers. Jean-Paul Sartre’s preface remains a relevant commentary on the moral and political effects of torture on both the victim and perpetrator.This Bison Books edition marks the first time since 1958 that The Question has been published in the United States. For this edition Ellen Ray provides a foreword. James D. Le Sueur offers an introduction.

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The first volume in his Roads to Freedom trilogy, Jean-Paul Sartre's The Age of Reason is a philosophical novel exploring existentialist notions of freedom, translated by Eric Sutton with an introduction by David Caute in Penguin Modern Classics.Set in the volatile Paris summer of 1938, The Age of Reason follows two days in the life of Mathieu Delarue, a philosophy teacher, and his circle in the cafés and bars of Montparnasse. Mathieu has so far managed to contain sex and personal freedom in conveniently separate compartments. But now he is in trouble, urgently trying to raise 4,000 francs to procure a safe abortion for his mistress, Marcelle. Beyond all this, filtering an uneasy light on his predicament, rises the distant threat of the coming of the Second World War.Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) was an iconoclastic French philosopher, novelist, playwright and, widely regarded as the central figure in post-war European culture and political thinking. Sartre famously refused the Nobel Prize for literature in 1964 on the grounds that 'a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution'. His most well-known works, all of which are published by Penguin, include The Age of Reason, Nausea and Iron in the Soul.If you enjoyed The Age of Reason, you might like Sartre's Nausea, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.'For my money ... the greatest novel of the post-war period'Philip Kerr, author of the Berlin Noir trilogy

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In March of 1980, Le Nouvel Observateur published the final interviews between the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, then blind and debilitated, and his young assistant, Benny Levy. Readers immediately denounced the interviews as distorted and fraudulent for portraying a Sartre who had abandoned his leftist convictions, rejected his most intimate friends, and cast aside his fundamental beliefs in favor of a messianic Judaism. Sartre's supporters argued that it was his orthodox interlocutor, Levy, who had twisted the words of the ailing philosopher. Yet, shortly before his death, Sartre confirmed the authenticity of the interviews and their puzzling content. Here, presented in translation, the interviews are framed by two provocative essays by Benny Levy, accompanied by a comprehensive introduction from noted Sartre authority Ronald Aronson, which places the interviews in biographical and philosophical perspective to demonstrate how they confirm and contribute to Sartre's overall philosophy. This absorbing volume at last contextualizes and elucidates the final thoughts of a brilliant and influential mind.

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Truth and Existence, written in response to Martin Heidegger's Essence of Truth, is a product of the years when Sartre was reaching full stature as a philosopher, novelist, playwright, essayist, and political activist. This concise and engaging text not only presents Sartre's ontology of truth but also addresses the key moral questions of freedom, action, and bad faith. Truth and Existence is introduced by an extended biographical, historical, and analytical essay by Ronald Aronson. "Truth and Existence is another important element in the recently published links between Sartre's existentialist ontology and his later ethical, political, and literary concerns...The excellent introduction by Aronson will help readers not experienced in reading Sartre."--Choice "Accompanied by an excellent introduction, this dense, lucidly translated treatise reveals Sartre as a characteristically 20th-century figure."--Publishers Weekly

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