At The Existentialist Caf

Shortlisted for the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize Paris, near the turn of 1932-3. Three young friends meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and their friend Raymond Aron, who opens their eyes to a radical new way of thinking... ‘It’s not often that you miss your bus stop because you’re so engrossed in reading a book about existentialism, but I did exactly that... The story of Sartre, Beauvoir, Camus, Heidegger et al is strange, fun and compelling reading. If it doesn’t win awards, I will eat my copy’ Independent on Sunday ‘Bakewell shows how fascinating were some of the existentialists’ ideas and how fascinating, often frightful, were their lives. Vivid, humorous anecdotes are interwoven with a lucid and unpatronising exposition of their complex philosophy... Tender, incisive and fair’ Daily Telegraph ‘Quirky, funny, clear and passionate... Few writers are as good as Bakewell at explaining complicated ideas in a way that makes them easy to understand’ Mail on Sunday

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At the Existentialist Caf

Named one of the Ten Best Books of 2016 by the New York Times, a spirited account of a major intellectual movement of the twentieth century and the revolutionary thinkers who came to shape it, by the best-selling author of How to Live Sarah Bakewell. Paris, 1933: three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called Phenomenology. "You see," he says, "if you are a phenomenologist you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!" It was this simple phrase that would ignite a movement, inspiring Sartre to integrate Phenomenology into his own French, humanistic sensibility, thereby creating an entirely new philosophical approach inspired by themes of radical freedom, authentic being, and political activism. This movement would sweep through the jazz clubs and cafés of the Left Bank before making its way across the world as Existentialism. Featuring not only philosophers, but also playwrights, anthropologists, convicts, and revolutionaries, At the Existentialist Café follows the existentialists' story, from the first rebellious spark through the Second World War, to its role in postwar liberation movements such as anti-colonialism, feminism, and gay rights. Interweaving biography and philosophy, it is the epic account of passionate encounters--fights, love affairs, mentorships, rebellions, and long partnerships--and a vital investigation into what the existentialists have to offer us today, at a moment when we are once again confronting the major questions of freedom, global responsibility, and human authenticity in a fractious and technology-driven world.

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Cinema Journal

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Personalities and Places

Dr van Rensburg was the head of the Ossewa-Brandwag, the formidable anti-Government organisation that opposed the war effort against Hitler not only politically but with acts of sabotage.

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Writing in the Dark

Amid the sleepless nights of constant explosion and gunfire, and the discomfort, grief and primordial fear, the little office at 6 Lansdowne Terrace seemed to hold intact everything that was great or beautiful about human life. As the streetlamps flickered out and lights were obscured behind brown-paper screens, a subdued atmosphere took hold of London in 1939. Cloistered in pubs and gloomy sitting rooms, London's young writers and artists faced being sent to the front, trading their paintbrushes and pens for the weapons of war. In WRITING IN THE DARK, Will Loxley conjures up this brooding world and tells the story of the defiant magazine Horizon, which sprung up against the odds. Interweaving the personal histories of the magazine's leaders - Cyril Connolly, George Orwell and the poets Dylan Thomas and Stephen Spender - with their poetry, prose and letters, Will brings us into these writers' homes and into the shabby offices at 6 Lansdowne Terrace. He evokes a lost generation of women whose work on Horizon has gone unsung. WRITING IN THE DARK transforms our impression of Bloomsbury as a byword for wealth and exclusivity, as the passing decades made it more diverse, influenced by the chaotic nocturnal culture of nearby Soho and Fitzrovia. Capturing the literary life of the Second World War, Will fuses the exhausted melancholy in the aftermath of the Blitz with changes in the writers' own lives, as they moved from city to countryside, from youth to middle age.

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Meanjin Quarterly

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Italy s Life

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200 Words to Help You Talk about Philosophy

If you have ever felt at a disadvantage when joining in a conversation on a subject that you aren't confident about, this new series is for you. Each book features definitions of two hundred words frequently used to describe and discuss a smart subject. Philosophy can be baffling, as well as fascinating, to the best of us. Let Anja Steinbauer guide you through doubt, dialectic, Dao, and much more.

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Alejo Carpentier the Pilgrim at Home

First published in 1977 (Cornell U.) and newly updated, Echevarria's (Spanish and comparative literature, Yale) critical study covers the life and work (and the life as revealed in the work) of the late, great Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

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The Shady Miracle

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Report on France

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How to Be an Existentialist

A concise and humorous introduction to existentialism aimed squarely at a general readership - and available in paperback for the first time.

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Square Haunting

A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE * LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE * "A beautiful and deeply moving book."--Sally Rooney, author of Normal People An engrossing group portrait of five women writers, including Virginia Woolf, who moved to London's Mecklenburgh Square in search of new freedom in their lives and work. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY POPMATTERS "I like this London life . . . the street-sauntering and square-haunting."--Virginia Woolf, diary, 1925 In the early twentieth century, Mecklenburgh Square--a hidden architectural gem in the heart of London--was a radical address. On the outskirts of Bloomsbury known for the eponymous group who "lived in squares, painted in circles, and loved in triangles," the square was home to students, struggling artists, and revolutionaries. In the pivotal era between the two world wars, the lives of five remarkable women intertwined at this one address: modernist poet H. D., detective novelist Dorothy L. Sayers, classicist Jane Harrison, economic historian Eileen Power, and author and publisher Virginia Woolf. In an era when women's freedoms were fast expanding, they each sought a space where they could live, love, and--above all--work independently. With sparkling insight and a novelistic style, Francesca Wade sheds new light on a group of artists and thinkers whose pioneering work would enrich the possibilities of women's lives for generations to come. Praise for Square Haunting "A fascinating voyage through the lives of five remarkable women . . . moving and immersive."--Edmund Gordon, author of The Invention of Angela Carter: A Biography "Elegant, erudite, and absorbing, Square Haunting is a startlingly original debut, and Francesca Wade is an author to watch."--Frances Wilson, author of Guilty Thing: A Life of Thomas De Quincey "Outstanding . . . I'll be recommending this all year."--Sarah Bakewell, author of At the Existentialist Café "I much enjoyed Francesca Wade's book. It almost made me wish I belonged to the pioneering generation of women spoiling eggs on the gas ring and breaking taboos."--Sue Prideaux, author of I Am Dynamite! A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche

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Meanjin Papers

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Existentialist Philosophy

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Punch

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A Time in India

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Contra Sartre s Existentialism

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Art Messianism and Crime

Examines the phenomenon of the romantic artist, or "artist manque", who rebels against conventional morality and adopts an ideology of sadism and antinomianism. Ch. 7 (pp. 80-102) discusses Adolf Hitler as an example of this type. Links his antisemitism to resentment of the "Jew-dominated" art establishment and the influence of the racist occultism of the Thule Society. Analyzes "Mein Kampf" and Hitler's self-portrait as a messiah able to deliver the world from the evil of the Jews. Nazi sadism and the cult of death also stem from literary traditions, including Wagnerianism. Ch. 11 (pp. 171-186) mentions antisemitism and racism in relation to the Charles Manson group in the USA during the 1960s.

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Existentialist Philosophies

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