让-保罗·萨特，法国思想家、作家。1936年萨特完成了一部关于偶然性的文学作品的第三稿，萨特将它定名为《忧郁》，评论界反应不错。有人把萨特和卡夫卡相提并论。称他为法国的卡夫卡。萨特认为从文学角度来看，这是他写的最好的书。

Jean-Paul Sartre, philosopher, critic, novelist and dramatist, holds a position of singular eminence in the world of French letters. Among readers and critics familiar with the whole of Sartre's work, it is generally recognized that his earliest novel, La Nausee (first published in 1938), is his finest and most significant. It is unquestionably a key novel of the Twentieth Century and a landmark in Existentialist fiction.

Nausea is the story of Antoine Roquentin, a French writer who is horrified at his own existence. In impressionistic, diary form he ruthlessly catalogues his every feeling and sensation about the world and people around him. 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." Roquentin's efforts to come to terms with life, his philosophical and psychological struggles, give Sartre the opportunity to dramatize the tenets of his Existentialist creed.

The introduction for this edition of Nausea by Hayden Carruth gives background on Sartre's life and major books, a summary of the principal themes of Existentialist philosophy, and a critical analysis of the novel itself.