Königin Albemarle oder Der letzte Tourist. Fragmente.

by Jean-Paul Sartre, Arlette Elkaïm-Sartre

"Dans ces pages qui parlent de l'Italie - dans celles sur Venise surtout, mélancoliques ou lancinantes -, Sartre, mieux que dans un journal intime, exprime son rapport à la beauté, au temps, à la mort et, finalement, la saveur de son existence ; on y perçoit en filigrane les sources subjectives de sa recherche philosophique. Jamais, sauf peut-être dans La nausée, il ne s'est servi plus subtilement du pouvoir envoûtant des mots, qui permet le don. "J'ai voulu quelque chose avec La reine Albemarle, et puis j'ai abandonné", disait-il. Ce quelque chose, n'était-ce pas avant tout que ses journées italiennes d'octobre 1951, telles qu'il les a déposées sur le papier, encore vivantes, ne se soient pas pour lui seul écoulées ; que, recueillies par des lecteurs, elles fassent partie désormais de leur expérience, presque de leurs souvenirs ?" Arlette Elkaïm-Sartre.

Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism. Sartre was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology). His work has influenced sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary studies. He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature despite attempting to refuse it, saying that he always declined official honors and that "a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution."
Sartre held an open relationship with prominent feminist and fellow existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. Together, Sartre and de Beauvoir challenged the cultural and social assumptions and expectations of their upbringings, which they considered bourgeois, in both lifestyles and thought. The conflict between oppressive, spiritually destructive conformity (mauvaise foi, literally, 'bad faith') and an "authentic" way of "being" became the dominant theme of Sartre's early work, a theme embodied in his principal philosophical work Being and Nothingness (L'Être et le Néant, 1943). Sartre's introduction to his philosophy is his work Existentialism Is a Humanism (L'existentialisme est un humanisme, 1946), originally presented as a lecture.