Nausea

Sartre's greatest novel and existentialism's key text now introduced by James Wood and read by the inimitable Edoardo Ballerini.Nausea is the story of Antoine Roquentin a French writer who is horrified at his own existence. In impressionistic diary form he ruthlessly catalogs his every feeling and sensation. His thoughts culminate in a pervasive overpowering feeling of nausea which “spreads at the bottom of the viscous puddle at the bottom of our time the time of purple suspenders and broken chair seats; it is made of wide soft instants spreading at the edge like an oil stain.”Winner of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature (though he declined to accept it) Jean-Paul Sartre philosopher critic novelist and dramatist holds a position of singular eminence in the world of French letters. La Nausée his first and best novel is a landmark in existential fiction and a key work of the 20th century.