What is literature?

The novelist Sartre and the philosopher Sartre united in a fundamental work written in 1947. This essay became a response to critics' accusations of the political bias of literature and its departure from high art. The author attempts to answer the most important questions for a writer: What does it mean to write? Why do people write? For whom do people write? The answers he found are unconventional and provocative, and whole generations of writers, philosophers, and literary scholars defend, refute, and reinterpret his ideas.