In philosophy he occupies a pivotal place between Cartesianism and phenomenology, on the one hand, and neo-Marxism on the other. His legacy is such that it is possible to speak of a post-Sartrean period as well as a Sartrean one. To different readers, or simply the man in the street, he represents different things. Some know him as the author of stories and novels, although perhaps only half of these have been widely read; others think of him principally as the author of plays, successful on the French stage and elsewhere and popular with the reading public. To still other readers he is chiefly a philosopher, known either as the author of the difficult
L'Etre et le néant (1943; translated as
Being and Nothingness, 1956) or the proponent of a popular existentialism, whose texts are often included in anthologies despite some coolness toward his work among professional philosophers, and to whom the so-called New Philosophers are indebted. He is, and should be, recognized also as a major critic of literature and art and an important biographer. The most common image of him doubtless includes some of all these aspects.
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