Nausea

Synopsis

Nausea is an epistolary novel by the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, which was published in 1938 and written while he was teaching at the lycée of Le Havre. It is Sartre's first novel and, in his opinion, one of his best works. The novel takes place in 'Bouville,' a town similar to Le Havre, and it concerns a dejected historian, who becomes convinced that inanimate objects and situations encroach on his ability to define himself, on his intellectual and spiritual freedom, evoking in the protagonist a sense of nausea. French writer Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre's lifelong partner, claims that La Nausée grants consciousness a remarkable independence and gives reality the full weight of its sense. It is one of the canonical works of existentialism. Sartre was awarded, though he ultimately declined, the Nobel Prize for literature in 1964. The Nobel Foundation recognized him "for his work which, rich in ideas and filled with the spirit of freedom and the quest for truth, has exerted a far-reaching influence on our age." Sartre was one of the few people to have declined the award, referring to it as merely a function of a bourgeois institution. The novel has been translated into English at least twice, by Lloyd Alexander as "The Diary of Antoine Roquentin" and by Robert Baldick as "Nausea".