No Exit: Arab Existentialism, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Decolonization

Yoav Di-Capua's book No Exit explores the flourishing of Arab existentialism in the Middle East during the 20th century, highlighting the influence of Jean-Paul Sartre on the Arab intelligentsia. However, the book also notes the tragic end of this intellectual movement when Sartre failed to support the Palestinian cause. No Exit provides a valuable account of the intellectual hopes, struggles, and victories that shaped the Arab experience of decolonization and offers an exploration of existentialism's non-Western history.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 336 pages
Publication date: 06 April 2018
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press

It is fascinating and relatively unknown that from the end of World War II until the late 1960s, the Middle East was the region outside of Europe where existentialism flourished most. The uncontested champion of the Arab intelligentsia was Jean-Paul Sartre. In the Arab world, no other Western intellectual has been translated, discussed, and celebrated to such a degree. Yoav Di-Capua reconstructs the cosmopolitan milieu of the generation that sought to articulate a political and philosophical vision for an egalitarian postcolonial world by closely following the remarkable career of Arab existentialism. He tells this story through the use of new Arabic and Hebrew archives, including unpublished diaries and interviews. Tragically, the warm and hopeful relationships forged between Arab intellectuals, Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and others ended when, on the eve of the 1967 war, Sartre failed to embrace the Palestinian cause. Today, when the prospect of global ethical engagement seems to be slipping ever farther out of reach, No Exit provides a timely, humanistic account of the intellectual hopes, struggles, and victories that shaped the Arab experience of decolonization, as well as a delightfully wide-ranging excavation of existentialism's non-Western history.

It is fascinating and relatively unknown that from the end of World War II until the late 1960s, the Middle East was the region outside of Europe where existentialism flourished most. The uncontested champion of the Arab intelligentsia was Jean-Paul Sartre. In the Arab world, no other Western intellectual has been translated, discussed, and celebrated to such a degree. Yoav Di-Capua reconstructs the cosmopolitan milieu of the generation that sought to articulate a political and philosophical vision for an egalitarian postcolonial world by closely following the remarkable career of Arab existentialism. He tells this story through the use of new Arabic and Hebrew archives, including unpublished diaries and interviews. Tragically, the warm and hopeful relationships forged between Arab intellectuals, Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and others ended when, on the eve of the 1967 war, Sartre failed to embrace the Palestinian cause. Today, when the prospect of global ethical engagement seems to be slipping ever farther out of reach, No Exit provides a timely, humanistic account of the intellectual hopes, struggles, and victories that shaped the Arab experience of decolonization, as well as a delightfully wide-ranging excavation of existentialism's non-Western history.

Weight: 578g
Dimension: 155 x 229 x 21 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780226503509