Troubled Sleep

Troubled Sleep

Funeral of the victims of Charonne, Paris, 7 February 1962

Magnum

Troubled Sleep is the third novel in Jean-Paul Sartre's Roads to Freedom trilogy, the first two being The Age of Reason and The Reprieve. Cartier-Bresson is an apt choice to illustrate the covers of the Vintage paperback edition from the early 1970s, since he and Sartre were friends, contemporaries and members of the Résistance during the occupation of France by the Nazi's, which happens to be the subject of this book. The Cartier-Bresson photograph used for the cover of this edition, however, was made twenty years after World War II. The 'victims of Charrone' were protesters killed by french police on February 8th, 1962, during a demonstration for Algerian independence. They had sought refuge in the Charrone metro station, which turned out to be locked, leaving them at the mercy of the police. Perhaps the publisher saw the somber solidarity of the Parisians in Cartier-Bresson's image as an appropriate metaphor for the book's content.

To view the full cover spread of this book, scroll down to "Multiple Views".

To view a more recent edition with a different design, scroll down to "Multiple Uses".