Work · Jean-Paul Sartre
War Diaries: Notebooks from a Phoney War
The soldier Sartre records daily life, reading and philosophical experiments during mobilization in 1939–1940 before captivity.
Understanding the text
First published posthumously in 1983, expanded in 1995 after another notebook emerged; the surviving corpus has gaps.
Key points
- 01
Situation
War imposes rhythms and relationships that alter imagined independence.
- 02
Workshop
Analyses prepare the 1943 ontology without being its final version.
- 03
Self-portrait
Writing judges personal habits while constructing a new self-image.
How to read it
Check which notebooks your edition contains and compare later works without erasing differences.
Editions & sources
Summaries and key points are original editorial interpretations. They accompany reading the work and do not replace an edition of the text. Editorial method ↗