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Sartre's Nausea

1938 · Paris (Paris, France)

In 1938 Jean-Paul Sartre publishes Nausea, the novel of Antoine Roquentin, who finds in a chestnut root the sheer contingency of things: everything is gratuitous, existing without reason. The novel makes Sartre's name and gives the movement its literary emblem before its philosophy is written.

Tagged: Existentialism

The Event

Date
1938 (exact)
Era
The Paris Decade; Standard periodization of existentialist history
Location
Paris; today Paris, France
Traditions
Existentialism
Streams
Existentialism
Key figures
Jean-Paul Sartre
Key texts
Nausea

Primary Sources

  • Sartre, Jean-Paul. La Nausée. Paris: Gallimard, 1938.

Secondary Sources

  • Gordon, Lewis R. Fanon and the Crisis of European Man. New York: Routledge, 1995.
  • Kaufmann, Walter, ed. Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre. New York: Meridian, 1956.
  • Solomon, Robert C. Existentialism. New York: Oxford University Press, second edition, 2005.

Provenance: HIST-1425; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-30.

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