I specialize in 20th century French literature and thought, and a large part of my research is about Jean-Paul Sartre. He was a writer and philosopher who left behind a wide variety of work, including the novel La Nausée (Nausea) and the philosophical work L’Être et le néant (Being and Nothingness).

I learned about Sartre when I read L’Être et le néant in my university days. I was especially attracted to his unique style that mixed thought and literature. Subsequently, I went to study overseas because of a desire to directly experience French culture and society. Before I knew it, I had been conducting research on him for a long period of time.

Before World War Two, Sartre’s work reflected a strong individualism, such as La Nausée, but after the war, he started making social statements as an intellectual. In his work centered on Qu’est-ce que la littérature? (What is Literature?), he advocated the idea of “engaged literature,” or literature of commitment, saying that writers have a responsibility to actively engage in politics and social issues, and he put this idea into practice.

There were critics of his approach of using literature as a way to convey social messages. However, when we read his critical works that were being published around the same time, we start to see a side of Sartre that was different from this image of a thought leader.

Satre’s second literary theory discovered through his dialogues with other writers

Sartre left behind many critical works targeting other writers and poets, including Jean Genet, Stéphane Mallarmé, and Gustave Flaubert. These are lengthy works, some of which are nearly 3,000 pages long. Among these works, I placed my attention on the word “poésie,” which he often used.

Usually, poésie refers to poems or poetic sentiments, but Sartre himself left behind almost no poetry and is sometimes said to have no interest in poetry. However, it becomes clear when carefully reading his critical works that poésie was being used to express a unique meaning that included the writer’s attitude toward the world, and that Sartre found his own ethical significance in it.

While this thinking is not completely different from the common understanding of “engaged literature,” it does differ in many respects. Therefore, I decided to try and reconstruct this literary theory as what can be called a second “What is Literature?” This was my primary research focus in France.

Literature as a way to experience life and the world more acutely

It is difficult to discuss literary works and ideas, but the real pleasure of research lies in the joy of being able to consolidate your interpretation in a way that satisfies you. Therefore, going forward, I hope to go beyond Sartre and try to present new ways of reading other writers who shared similar interests, such as André Malraux. I also intend to continue publishing my works in French as I want to let people around the world read them.

Literature and thought can be difficult to understand. I myself sometimes feel detached from society when I get lost in thinking about detailed interpretations. However, there are moments when the feelings you get from a certain work—whether about life or the world—leave a stronger impression than real life, precisely because they are experiences that take the detour of literature.

It may be exaggerating to call this the power of literature, but I feel that this is the appeal of studying literature. I would be happy to share this feeling with students.

The book I recommend

“Le mythe de Sisyphe”(The Myth of Sisyphus)
by Albert Camus, Japanese translation by Toru Shimizu, Shincho Bunko

The mythical figure of Sisyphus, who was condemned to keep pushing a boulder up a mountain, was used as a metaphor to write about both the absurdity and joy of life, in Camus’s characteristically concise and honest style. I recommend starting by reading the short essay, also titled “The Myth of Sisyphus,” at the end of the book.

Interviewed: June 2025