Les Mains sales in the original French. Political drama by Jean-Paul Sartre, set in the fictional Illyria, about the young, starry-eye Hugo who is sent to assassinate Hoederer, a party leader. Under the name Raskolnikov, he gets a job as Hoederer's secretary, and he and his wife grow closer to him. Although Hoederer stands for everything Hugo is against, he comes to see him as a sort of savior as he deals with that old clash between idealism and realpolitik.

Although evidently modeled after the political situation in Hungary during and after World War II, the play is really about one man in an archetypal situation rather than a specific incident. It is considered to be Sartre's most important play after No Exit, and in 2000 was performed under the title The Novice in Britain.

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