On American Fiction

Iconic French novelist, playwright and essayist, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) is widely recognized as one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century, whose work has remained relevant and thought-provoking through the decades. The Seagull Sartre Library now presents some of his most incisive philosophical, cultural, and literary critical essays in twelve newly designed volumes.

Sartre’s engagement with literature of his day extended well beyond the works of his French contemporaries. This short volume testifies to his astonishing grasp of the nuances of American fiction as he analyzes three of the most important twentieth-century writers: John Dos Passos, Vladimir Nabokov and William Faulkner, whose ‘humanism’, writes Sartre, ‘is the only acceptable sort.’