Name: Hope Now: The 1980 Interviews
SKU: 1858661
Price: 697.00 ZAR
Availability: InStock
Author: Jean-Paul Sartre
ISBN: 9780226476315

Type

Physical Book

Author

Jean-Paul Sartre

Publisher

Univ Of Chicago Pr

Year

2007

Language

English

Pages

135

Format

Paperback

ISBN

0226476316

ISBN13

9780226476315

Synopsis "Hope Now: The 1980 Interviews "

In March of 1980, just a month before Sartre's death, Le Nouvel Observateur published a series of interviews, the last ever given, between the blind and debilitated philosopher and his young assistant, Benny Levy. Readers were scandalized and denounced the interviews as distorted, inauthentic, even fraudulent. They seemed to portray a Sartre who had abandoned his leftist convictions and rejected his most intimate friends, including Simone de Beauvoir. This man had cast aside his own fundamental beliefs in the primacy of individual consciousness, the inevitability of violence, and Marxism, embracing instead a messianic Judaism. No, Sartre's supporters argued, it was his interlocutor, the ex-radical, the orthodox, ultra-right-wing activist who had twisted the words and thought of an ailing Sartre to his own ends. Or had he? Shortly before his death, Sartre confirmed the authenticity of the interviews and their puzzling content. Over the past fifteen years, it has become the task of Sartre scholars to unravel and understand them. Presented in this fresh, meticulous translation, the interviews are framed by two provocative essays from Benny Levy himself, accompanied by a comprehensive introduction from noted Sartre authority Ronald Aronson. Placing the interviews in proper biographical and philosophical perspective, Aronson demonstrates that the thought of both Sartre and Levy reveals multiple intentions that taken together nevertheless confirm and add to Sartre's overall philosophy. This absorbing volume at last contextualizes and elucidates the final thoughts of a brilliant and influential mind. Jean-Paul Sartre (1906-1980) was offered, but declined, the Nobel Prize for literature in 1964. His many works of fiction, drama, and philosophy include the monumental study of Flaubert, The Family Idiot, and The Freud Scenario, both published in translation by the University of Chicago Press.

Jean-Paul Sartre

(Author)

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Jean-Paul Sartre (Paris, June 21, 1905 – April 15, 1980) was a French philosopher, novelist, playwright, and political activist, considered the main representative of existentialism and a key figure in twentieth-century thought. He studied at the École Normale Supérieure, where he met Simone de Beauvoir, his lifelong intellectual and romantic partner.

His most influential philosophical work, Being and Nothingness (1943), develops an ontology based on the radical freedom of human beings, proposing that “existence precedes essence,” meaning we are not predetermined and must construct ourselves through our choices. In literature, he stood out with Nausea (1938) and the play No Exit (1944), where he addressed the absurdity of existence and human relationships.

Sartre was also a committed political activist: he participated in the French Resistance during World War II, supported decolonization movements, and was critical of capitalism and totalitarianism. In 1964, he declined the Nobel Prize in Literature, believing that a writer should not be institutionalized.

He died in 1980, leaving a philosophical and literary legacy that continues to influence ethics, politics, and existential theory.

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