Name: the condemned of altona
Price: 24.78 EUR
Availability: InStock
Author: Jean-Paul Sartre
ISBN: 9780393008890

Type

Physical Book

Author

Jean-Paul Sartre

Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company

Language

English

Format

Paperback

Dimensions

20.1 x 12.7 x 1.5 cm

Weight

0.18 kg.

ISBN

0393008894

ISBN13

9780393008890

Synopsis "the condemned of altona"

The Condemned of Altona is an act of judgment on the twentieth century, which might have been an admirable era (the closing lines tell us) if man had not been threatened by 'the cruel enemy who had sworn to destroy him, that hairless, evil, flesh-eating beast--man himself. 'All the characters in the play are defendants, trapped inside the frame of the proscenium as securely as Eichmann within his glass cage in Jerusalem; their judge is the past, and its verdict is without mercy. Two death penalties are imposed, and one sentence of solitary confinement for life. The stage, as so often in M. Sartre's hands, becomes a place of moral inquisition, at once a courtroom and a prison.

Jean-Paul Sartre

(Author)

View Author's Page

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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