Jean-Paul Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, dramatist, novelist and critic. Sartre is one of those writers for whom a determined philosophical position is the centre of their artistic being. Although drawn from many sources, the existentialism Sartre formulated and popularised was profoundly original. Its popularity and that of its author reached a climax in the forties, and Sartre's theoretical writings as well as his novels and plays constitute one of the main inspirational sources of modern literature.