- The Roads to Freedom
"The Roads to Freedom" ("Les chemins de la liberté", in the original French) is a trilogy of novels by
Jean-Paul Sartre .The three novels "L'âge de raison" ("The Age of Reason"), "Le sursis" (generally translated as "The Reprieve" but which could cover a number of semantic fields from 'deferment' to 'amnesty'), and "La mort dans l'âme" ("Troubled Sleep", originally translated as "Iron in the Soul"), revolve around Mathieu, a Socialist teacher of
philosophy , and a group of his friends. The trilogy was to be followed by a fourth novel,Drôle d'amitié ; however, Sartre would never finish it, and only two (untranslated) chapters remain. [Caute, D: Introduction to "The Reprieve" by Jean-Paul Sartre, Penguin Classics 2001]The novels were written largely in response to the events of
World War II and the Nazi occupation ofFrance , and express certain significant shifts in Sartre's philosophical position towards 'engagement' (commitment) in both life and literature, finding their resolution in the extended essay "L'existentialisme c'est un humanisme" ("Existentialism is a Form of Humanism"), which was criticized from both sides of the existentialist fence.This series of novels is considered to be (for example by Rowley in "Tête-à-tête") semi-autobiographical, with, for example, Mathieu standing in for Sartre, and Ivich representing
Olga Kosakiewicz .The novel series was adapted into a ten-part television serial for the
BBC in 1970, starringMichael Bryant as Mathieu.References
External links
*Imdb title|0159910
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