"What is Literature?" remains the most significant critical landmark of French literature since World War II. Neither abstract nor abstruse, it is a brilliant, provocative performance by a writer more inspired than cautious. "What is Literature?" challenges anyone who writes as if literature could be extricated from history or society. But Sartre does more than indict. He offers a definitive statement about the phenomenology of reading, and he goes on to provide a dashing example of how to write a history of literature that takes ideology and institutions into account. This new edition of "What is Literature?" also collects three other crucial essays of Sartre's for the first time in a volume of his. The essays presenting Sartre's monthly, Les Temps modernes, and on the peculiarly French manner of nationalizing literature do much to create a context for Sartre's treatise. "Black Orpheus" has been for many years a key text for the study of black and third-world literatures.

About the Author
Jean-Paul Sartre, the great figure of French literary and philosophical culture at mid-century, was the author of numerous works. Steven Ungar is Professor of French and Chair of Comparative Literature at the University of Iowa and the author of Roland Barthes: The Professor of Desire.


Book Information
ISBN 9780674950849
Author Jean-Paul Sartre
Format Paperback
Page Count 368
Imprint Harvard University Press
Publisher Harvard University Press
Weight(grams) 454g
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 140mm * 28mm