Jean-Paul Sartre: A Critical Tribute

Abstract

Jean-Paul Sartre is seventy: what does he mean to us? He is a man who lived half his life in the limelight of extreme notoriety. An intellectual who already in 1945 had to protest against attempts aimed at institutionalizing the writer, turning his works into 'national goods', exclaiming: 'it is not pleasant to be treated in one's life-time as a public moment.' What must be equally unpleasant is to be constantly subjected to abuse. And the fact is that no writer in his life-time has been the target of so many attacks, from the most varied and rather powerful quarters, as Jean-Paul Sartre. What are the reasons? How should we approach the work of this man: our contemporary?