Sartre and Camus: A Historic Confrontation

In 1952, Jean-Paul Sartre engaged Albert Camus in a celebrated and bitter public confrontation that had wide-ranging cultural significance. This book contains the first English translation of the five texts constituting this famous philosophical quarrel. Personally animated, passionately argued, polemically focused, this confrontation was as much a personal encounter as it was a theoretical debate. Alternating between stylistic brilliance and stinging sarcasm, each draws upon their years of past involvement as former friends both to make their criticisms more pointed and their theoretical critique more challenging. At the same time, their views serve as lightning rods for the wider cultural forces of which they are partial expressions.