When was Jean-Paul Sartre's novel Nausea first published?
Nausea was first published in 1938. Sartre composed it between 1932 and 1936, and the publisher Gaston Gallimard accepted the manuscript in 1937, proposing the title La Nausee.
Questions about Nausea (novel)
Short answers, pulled from the story.
What was Sartre's original title for Nausea?
Sartre originally titled the novel Melancholia, based on Albrecht Durer's engraving Melencolia I. The publisher Gaston Gallimard suggested the change to La Nausee before publication.
Who is Antoine Roquentin in Nausea?
Antoine Roquentin is the novel's protagonist, a former adventurer living alone in the fictional seaport town of Bouville. He has been there for three years, ostensibly to complete a biography of the 18th-century political figure the Marquis de Rollebon, and experiences a growing sensation of revulsion he calls "the Nausea."
What is the philosophical meaning of the Nausea in Sartre's novel?
The Nausea represents Sartre's concept of contingency: the recognition that reality is fundamentally groundless and that objects carry no inherent meaning. At the chestnut tree, Roquentin grasps that people must create their own meaning, arriving at both freedom and responsibility.
How did Albert Camus respond to Sartre's Nausea?
Camus reviewed Nausea while working on his own first novel in Algeria. He praised each chapter as reaching "a kind of perfection in bitterness and truth," but felt the descriptive and philosophical passages were not balanced and that Sartre had not given enough weight to human greatness. His largely positive review led to a friendship between the two authors.
What are the main English translations of Nausea by Sartre?
Lloyd Alexander translated the novel into English as The Diary of Antoine Roquentin, first published by New Directions in 1949 with a paperback edition in 1959. Robert Baldick produced a second translation titled Nausea, published by Penguin Books in the UK in 1965 and reissued in 2000 with an introduction by James Wood.