Jun 21 2009
Jean-Paul Sartre, 1905-1980
Jean-Paul Sartre was born on June 21, 1905 in Paris, France. His mother was a cousin of Dr. Albert Schweitzer. Sartre received a Doctorate in Philosophy from the Ecole Normale Superieure. While there he met Simone De Beauvoir with whom he had a life-long friendship and romance. In 1929, he was drafted into the army, he was released in 1931. During World War II he was drafted again and served as a meteorologist. He was captured by the Germans and spent 9 months in a prisoner of war camp. After the war, Sartre taught at the Lycee Pasteur. For most of his life, Sartre was a political activist, supporting many of the causes of the day. He was also a life-long believer in communism, although never joined the party. He ended his friendship with Albert Camus when Camus turned against communism in 1951.
Jean-Paul Sartre published his first book, L’Imagination in 1936. It was a critique of psychology. His first novel, La Nausee(Nausea) was published in 1938. It is seen as a manifesto of Existentialism , the philosophy he believed in and preached. Some of Sartre’s better known works are the play Huis-clos (No Exit) which was published in 1944 and Le Mur (1939). During his career, Sartre wrote plays, novels, non-fiction studies and biographies. His last published work, published posthumously in 1984, was Les Carnets de la drole de guerre: Novembre 1939-Mars 1940 (War Diaries: Notebooks from a phony war, 1939-1940).
Jean-Paul Sartre died on April 15, 1980.
