The Reprieve

The Reprieve () is a 1945 novel by French author Jean-Paul Sartre. It is the second part in the trilogy The Roads to Freedom. It concerns life in France during the eight days before the signing of the Munich Agreement and the subsequent takeover of Czechoslovakia in September 1938. Sartre explores the reactions of numerous characters to the possibility of war. A mobilization of French men is called and those in one classification are to report for duty. Their reluctance or eagerness, their fear and worry, how, in general, they respond to this change in their lives provides the main substance of the novel. Instead of following a major character, as he did in the first volume of the trilogy, The Age of Reason, Sartre, by portraying and focusing on about a dozen men and women, emphasizes the universality and social nature of events of this type. Many men and women are afraid, not just one.