Sartre, Jean-Paul 1905-80
French existentialist philosopher, dramatist, novelist and Nobel Prize winner

Born in Paris, he studied at the Sorbonne and taught philosophy at Le Havre, Paris and Berlin (1934-35). He was taken prisoner in World War II (1941), and after his release became a member of the Resistance in Paris. In 1945 he emerged as the most prominent member of the left-wing, left-bank intellectual life of Paris. In 1946, with Simone de Beauvoir, he founded and edited the avant-garde monthly Les Temps modernes ('Modern Times'). A disciple of Martin Heidegger, he developed his own characteristic existentialist doctrines, which found full expression in his autobiographical novel La Naus�e (1938, Eng trans Nausea, 1949) and other fiction. The Nazi occupation provided the grim background to such plays as Les Mouches (1943, Eng trans The Flies, 1946), a modern version of the Orestes theme, and Huis clos (1944, Eng trans In Camera, 1946; also known as No Exit and No Way Out). Les Mains sales (1948, Eng trans Crime Passionnel, 1949) movingly portrayed the tragic consequences of a decision to join an extremist party. His atheistic existentialist doctrines are outlined in L'Existentialisme est un humanisme (1946, Eng trans Existentialism and Humanism, 1948) and are fully worked out in L'�tre et le n�ant (1943, Eng trans Being and Nothingness, 1956). Other notable works include the trilogy Les Chemins de la libert� ('Paths of Freedom'). In 1964 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, but he declined it. In the late 1960s he became closely involved in opposition to US policies in Vietnam, and expressed support for the student rebellions of 1968. He wrote an autobiography, Les Mots (1963, Eng trans The Words, 1964).

Bibliography: A C Solal, Sartre (1988)