Typhus

by Sartre, Jean-Paul

• ISBN13: 9781906497422
• ISBN10: 1906497427
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-07-15
• Publisher: Seagull Books

Summary

Set in Malaya during the British protectorate, Sartre'sTyphuscentres on the improbable couple formed by the disgraced former doctor Georges, who has sunk to the lowest depths of a highly stratified colonial society, and Nellie, a down-at-heel nightclub singer, whose partner succumbs to the typhus epidemic sweeping the country. Though it does not shy from the explosive issues of colonialism and race that are implicit in its setting,Typhusis both a turbulent love story in the best traditions of Western popular cinema and an existentialist tale of moral redemption that shares many fascinating parallels with Albert Camus's novelThe Plague. Jean-Paul Sartre penned the screenplayTyphusin 194344 as a commission for French film-makers Pathe, who were planning a post-war production. However, the film was never made, though Yves Allegret's 1953 filmThe Proud Onesretains some distant echoes of Sartre's original script. The script was lost for nearly sixty years before being rediscovered and published in French in 2007. This first English publication will be essential for fans of Sartre and twentieth-century French literature and postwar film. "One of the most brilliant and versatile writers as well as one of the most original thinkers of the twentieth century."The Times(UK) "Jean-Paul Sartre dominated the intellectual life of 20th-century France to an extraordinary degree."Tom Bishop,New York Times