Born: 6/21/1905   Died: 4/15/1980

Sartre was a French Existentialist philosopher who was also a novelist, dramatist, literary critic, political essayist, and public intellectual. Sartre's most significant philosophical work, Being and Nothingness, is considered the seminal text of modern existentialism. As its subtitle states, Being and Nothingness is a "phenomenological essay in ontology," offering analyses of concepts central to human experience such as consciousness, freedom, responsibility, bad faith, and anguish. Among the memorable claims Sartre makes in this text is that we are "condemned to be free." Sartre also explored existentialist themes in his works of fiction, the best known of which include his novel Nausea and his play No Exit. In 1964, Sartre was offered, but declined to accept, the Nobel Prize for Literature. Famously, Sartre enjoyed a lifelong collaboration and open relationship with philosopher and novelist Simone de Beauvoir.