Jean-Paul Sartre

French Philosopher and Playwright

Date of Birth	:	21 Jun, 1905
Date of Death	:	15 Apr, 1980
Place of Birth	:	Paris, France
Profession	:	French Philosopher, Playwright, Author
Nationality	:	French

Jean-Paul Sartre was a French Philosopher, Novelist, Author, and Playwright, best known as the leading exponent of existentialism in the 20th century. In 1964 he declined the Nobel Prize for Literature, which had been awarded to him “for his work which, rich in ideas and filled with the spirit of freedom and the quest for truth, has exerted a far-reaching influence on our age.”

Early life and writings

Sartre lost his father at an early age and grew up in the home of his maternal grandfather, Carl Schweitzer, uncle of the medical missionary Albert Schweitzer and himself professor of German at the Sorbonne. The boy, who wandered in the Luxembourg Gardens of Paris in search of playmates, was small in stature and cross-eyed. His brilliant autobiography, Les Mots (1963; Words), narrates the adventures of the mother and child in the park as they went from group to group—in the vain hope of being accepted—then finally retreated to the sixth floor of their apartment “on the heights where (the) dreams dwell.” “The words” saved the child, and his interminable pages of writing were the escape from a world that had rejected him but that he would proceed to rebuild in his own fancy.