'The Wall', the lead story in this collection, introduces three political prisoners on the night prior to their execution. Through the gaze of an impartial doctor-seemingly there for the men's solace-their mental descent is charted in exquisite, often harrowing detail. And as the morning draws inexorably closer, the men cross the psychological wall between life and death, long before the first shot rings out. This brilliant snapshot of life in anguish is the perfect introduction to a collection of stories where the neurosis of the modern world is mirrored in the lives of the people that inhabit it . This is an unexpurgated edition translated from the French by Lloyd Alexander.

In the five stories included in this collection - "The Wall," "The Room," "Erostratus," "Intimacy" and "The Childhood of a Leader" - the French master of Existentialism displays his powers of narrative and psychological insight at their most effective. Sartre's characters and situations mirror the conflicts, complexities, neuroses and sensuality of the twentieth century. His intellectual underworld includes a modern Erostratus who is compelled to murder, a psychotic who communicates his hallucinations to his formerly-sane spouse, an unfaithful wife still bound to her importent husband, a boy's metamorphosis into an anti-semitic fascist, and the astonishing fate of a political prisoner. The close-ups of these people living in a contemporary world are vividly real; their stories are gripping and almost unbearably suspenseful. Polyphonic themes of decadence, sexual perversion, insanity and political and social amorality are skill-fully woven throughout the entire collection of stories. Translated by Lloyd Alexander, this is an unexpurgated edition. Punch said of the English edition: "Leaves Lady Chatterley's Lover asleep at the post." An earlier clothbound edition of this collection was published under the title Intimacy

Jean-Paul Sartre was an existentialist philosopher, author, playwright, and political activist, from France.

He wrote numerous pieces of literature during his lifetime. Some of these titles were The Henri Martin Affair, Witness to My Life & Quiet Moments in a War, The Transcendence of the Ego, The Trojan Women, The Critique of Dialectical Reason, Being And Nothingness, The Words, Existentialism Is A Humanism, and Iron In The Soul.

Sartre was a key figure in the development of existentialist philosophy. After serving in World War II as a meteorologist, Sartre made many literary contributions to esteemed papers such as Modern Times and Combat. Jean-Paul Sartre received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1964, but refused to accept it. Although he never married, he had a lifelong companionship with Simone de Beauvoir, who was a philosopher and feminist. Sartre passed away on April 15th, 1980, at the age of 74.