Originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2005. 

Miles Kington fell in love with the writing of Jean-Paul Sartre in his teens, inseparable from a dog-eared copy of ‘La Nausee’, Sartre’s early novel which caught the imagination of a generation with its portrait of a man adrift. 

In this programme, in Sartre’s centenary year (2005), Miles explores Sartre’s Paris from the Café de Flore which was the scene of much of his creativity to the cemetery in Montparnasse where he is buried with his life long companion Simone de Beauvoir. 

TAKING PART 

MILES KINGTON - Presenter 
MICHAEL CONTAT - Friend of JP Sartre/Author 
OLIVIER TODD - Journalist/Married to JP Sartre’s best friend’s daughter 
ANNIE COHEN-SOLA - Biographer of JP Sartre 
RICHARD EYRE - Former director of National Theatre 
ALAIN GEISMAR - Former lecturer at Sorbonne/Maoist rebel publisher  

N.B. Some audio has been edited from the original broadcast version due to copyright restrictions