Les Mots [The Words]

Paris, Gallimard, (30 décembre 1963), 1964.
1 vol. (125 x 195 mm); 213 p. In wrappers.

First edition.
One of 45 copies on hollande (no. 33). 

We apologize for the imperfect translation generated by Deepl for the purposes of the show.

This autobiographical account, which, on the pretext of recounting the career of a man of letters, puts literature to shame, sends all the dreamers back to the error of their ways: mistaking their disenchantment for the truth. For Sartre, writing has long been a way of giving meaning, of ‘wresting my life, as he put it, from chance’. Back from this challenge, the fifty-something author of Les Mots drew up a definitive assessment of his past illusions: ‘for about ten years I have been a man who wakes up, cured of a long, bitter and sweet madness and who can’t come back from it and who can’t remember without laughing his former wanderings and who no longer knows what to do with his life’.

A fine copy.