The Words (book)

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The Words
The Words (French edition).jpg
Cover of the French edition
Author Jean-Paul Sartre
Original titleLes Mots
Translator Bernard Frechtman
LanguageFrench
Genre Autobiography
Publisher Gallimard
Publication date
1963
Publication placeFrance
Published in English
September 1964
Media typePrint (hardback and paperback)
Pages255
OCLC 455681411
848.91409
LC Class PQ2637 .A82

The Words (French : Les Mots) is the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre's 1963 [1] autobiography.

Contents

Structure and presentation

Sartre in 1965 Jean Paul Sartre 1965.jpg
Sartre in 1965

The text is divided into two near-equal parts entitled 'Reading' (Lire) and 'Writing' (Écrire). However, according to Philippe Lejeune, these two parts are only a façade and are not relevant to the chronological progression of the work. He considers the text to instead be divided into five parts which he calls 'acts':

The first title which Sartre thought of was Jean sans terre. [2]

Reception

The book, consisting of Sartre distancing himself from writing and making his farewells to literature, was very successful for the author and was hailed nearly unanimously as a "literary success"[ citation needed ]. In November of the same year, 1964, he refused the Nobel Prize for Literature awarded for his work, described as "rich in ideas and filled with the spirit of freedom and the quest for truth, [it] has exerted a far-reaching influence on our age." [3]

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References

  1. 1 2 Aronson, Ronald. 1980. Jean-Paul Sartre: Philosophy in the World. Archived 2011-07-16 at the Wayback Machine .
  2. Boulé, Jean-Pierre (2005). Sartre, Self-formation, and Masculinities. Berghahn Books. ISBN   978-1-57181-742-6.
  3. "The Nobel Prize in Literature 1964".