Jean-Paul Sartre rejected Nobel prize in a letter to jury that arrived too late

The Swedish Academy has released a letter from the Huis Clos author – who was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1964 but declined it – in which he asked not to be chosen

Jean-Paul Sartre’s letter informing the Swedish Academy that he would decline the Nobel prize, were it to be offered to him, arrived after the jury had already decided upon the French existentialist as their winner, newly opened archives confirm.

Sartre was named as the Nobel laureate for literature in 1964, praised by the academy “for his work which, rich in ideas and filled with the spirit of freedom and the quest for truth, has exerted a far-reaching influence on our age”. But the author of Huis Clos and La Nausée declined the award, later explaining his belief that “a writer who adopts political, social, or literary positions must act only with the means that are his own – that is, the written word”, and that “all the honours he may receive expose his readers to a pressure I do not consider desirable”.

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