“This fine new translation provides us with as crisp a rendering as possible of Sartre’s complex prose. Andrew Leak, University College London, UK “With its scholarly introduction, up-to-date bibliography and numerous footnotes, Richmond’s fluent and precise translation will be an indispensable tool even for scholars able to read Sartre in French.” Dan Zahavi, University of Copenhagen, Denmark Sarah Richmond has done an excellent job of translating and clarifying Sartre’s magnum opus, making its rich content accessible to a wider audience.” “A new translation of Being and Nothingness has been long overdue. Her translation is exemplary in its clarity.” Being and Nothingness is not an easy read but Sarah Richmond makes it accessible in English to the general reader. “Sartre’s philosophy will always be important. Having developed a set of brilliant translation principles, laid out carefully in her introductory notes, she has produced a version of Sartre’s magnum opus that – finally! – renders his challenging philosophical prose comprehensible to the curious general reader and his most compelling phenomenological descriptions and analyses luminous and thrilling for those of us who have studied Being and Nothingness for years.”

“Sarah Richmond’s translation of this ground-zero existentialist text is breathtaking. Sarah Bakewell, author of At the Existentialist Café “Sarah Richmond’s marvellously clear and thoughtful new translation brings Sartre’s rich, infuriating, endlessly fertile masterpiece to a whole new English-language readership.” “This is a philosophy to be reckoned with, both for its own intrinsic power and as a profound symptom of our time.” Now with a new foreword by Harvard professor of philosophy Richard Moran, this clear-eyed translation guarantees that the groundbreaking ideas that Sartre introduced in this resonant work will continue to inspire for generations to come. Far from being an internal, passive container for our thoughts and experiences, human consciousness is constantly projecting itself into the outside world and imbuing it with meaning. In a new and more accessible translation, this foundational text argues that we alone create our values and our existence is characterized by freedom and the inescapability of choice.

A brilliant and radical account of the human condition, Being and Nothingness explores what gives our lives significance. In 1943, Jean-Paul Sartre published his masterpiece, Being and Nothingness, and laid the foundation of his legacy as one of the greatest twentieth century philosophers. “This is a philosophy to be reckoned with, both for its own intrinsic power and as a profound symptom of our time” ( The New York Times). Revisit one of the most important pillars in modern philosophy with this new English translation-the first in more than 60 years-of Jean-Paul Sartre’s seminal treatise on existentialism.

Being and nothingness sarah richmond