The “revolted soul”

By the time Camus and Sartre were formally introduced in 1943, they were already familiar with, and had publicly expressed measured admiration for, each other's works. In 1938 and 1939 Camus had quite favourably reviewed Sartre's Nausea and The Wall (SEN: 167–72; E: 1417–22). In 1943 Sartre wrote favourably of The Outsider (Sartre 1962a: 108–21; Sartre 1993: 92–112). They first met in Paris in June 1943, at the opening of Sartre's play The Flies, and shortly thereafter Sartre became involved with Combat (where Camus was now editor), although he did not write for it until after the Liberation. In an interview in 1944, Camus declared himself to “have three friends in the literary world, André Malraux, even if I no longer see him because of his political positions, René Char, who is like a brother to me, and Jean-Paul Sartre”. In the same year Sartre asked Camus to direct and act in his play No Exit. In 1945 Camus offered Sartre the opportunity to travel to America to write a series of reports for Combat. While there he wrote of his friend in Vogue magazine: