Iconic French novelist, playwright and essayist, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) is widely recognized as one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century, whose work has remained relevant and thought-provoking through the decades. The Seagull Sartre Library now presents some of his most incisive philosophical, cultural, and literary critical essays in twelve newly designed volumes.

‘There is a crisis of the essay,’ begins Sartre as he ventures into a long analysis of how the work of one of his contemporaries who might save this form-Georges Bataille. He reviews Aminadab, the important work of another hugely influential philosopher-Maurice Blanchot, through whom, writes Sartre, ‘the literature of the fantastic continues the steady progress that will inevitably unite it, ultimately, with what it has always been.