Sartre's 'Les Mots' Enters Pléiade as Anti-Literary Manifesto

Jean-Paul Sartre's autobiographical work 'Les Mots' has been published as the 560th volume in Gallimard's prestigious Pléiade collection, alongside classics by Augustine, Rousseau, and Chateaubriand. The edition includes other autobiographical texts and is presented by its editor as a masterpiece of 20th-century autobiography. However, the article argues that 'Les Mots' is fundamentally a devastating critique of literary illusion, akin to pamphlets by Breton, Aragon, and Artaud, and a farewell to literature. Sartre dissects his childhood neurosis—a faith in literature as personal salvation—revealing it as a form of madness. The Pléiade volume highlights how Sartre's entire oeuvre, from 'La Nausée' to 'L'Idiot de la famille,' forms a single autobiographical project, each work reenacting a crisis of contingency. Sartre systematically attacks his own constructed persona, exposing the imposture of literary belief. The article concludes that Sartre's critique remains pertinent today, as literature claims superiority despite its diminished status, and that his work is irrecoverable for traditional literary veneration.