1905–1980 · French existentialist philosopher, playwright & novelist
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) was the central figure of French existentialism and the author of Being and Nothingness (1943), the novel Nausea (1938) and the play No Exit (1944). His 1945 lecture Existentialism Is a Humanism popularised the slogans “existence precedes essence” and “man is condemned to be free.” He was awarded, and declined, the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964.