Portraits The French List

Portraits includes Sartre’s preface to Nathalie Sarraute’s Portrait of a Man Unknown and his homages to André Gide, Albert Camus and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The essay on Merleau-Ponty casts considerable light on the recent history of French philosophy, particularly with regard to dominant post-war political conceptions. Also featured are lengthy studies of Sartre’s close friend Paul Nizan and of the young André Gorz that are no less revealing, as well as Sartre’s “Reply to Albert Camus,” which sealed the ideological and personal break between the two writers on its publication in 1952. Alongside these major writings are fascinating articles on Tintoretto and a number of contemporary artists, including Alberto Giacometti and André Masson. Finally, Portraits concludes with two travelogue-style accounts of Sartre’s time in Italy.