Jean-Paul Sartre's interest in literary criticism is indirect: his concern is chiefly to understand the condition of the writer, the particular way in which he remains dependent on, but manages to be free from his day and place, his public and his language. To communicate effectively with his reader a writer must, in Sartre's view, be representative yet original, influenced by his situation yet able to assert his own self much more than most of us are ever in a position to do. Viewed in this way, the condition of the writer is a privileged instance of the human condition, and the study of it necessarily occupies a considerable place in a philosophy which is above all concerned with the problem of freedom. At the same time, the practice of literary criticism, in this special sense, enables Sartre to express his ideas with a bold provocativeness which lies...