Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre, (1905-80). French philosopher, nov-elist, and dramatist. He was the leading exponent of existentialism, a philosophical movement that regards man as the product of his own actions and decisions, not governed by heredity or external forces of destiny. He began a lifelong association with Simone de Beauvoir while at the Sorbonne. Among his earlier works were the novel Nausea (1938) and his major philosophical text Being and Nothingness (1943). He was taken prisoner during World War II, and worked for the Resistance on his return to France. After the war he published the trilogy of novels Roads to Freedom (1945-49) and turned increasingly to the theatre, with such plays as In Camera (1945). With Beauvoir he established the review Modern Times and played a prominent part in left-wing politics. Later in his life he published philosophical works and the autobiography Words (1963). He refused the Nobel Prize in 1964.
