Stephens (French, U. of Bristol, England) offers a comparative exploration of the literature of iconic French writers Victor Hugo and Jean Paul Sartre. Setting the two writers in conversation with each other, he focuses on how each approached the self as part of the self/other dynamic and the implications of their understanding of the self for their understandings of liberty as indeterminate and thus requiring constant engagement within day-to-day existence. He further addresses how this insistence on engagement with an indeterminate freedom influenced their writing, with both Hugo and Sartre cultivating a literature of plurality and an indeterminism of narrative. Distributed in North America by The David Brown Book Co. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)