Written in French in the late forties before Waiting for Godot, Eleutheria is about a young man at odds with his middle-class family, living alone in a bedsit and refusing to take part in 'normal' life while accepting handouts from his mother. Often richly comic, it contains elements of high farce and draws on the traditions of French boulevard comedy and melodrama.

This new edition includes the notice by Jérôme Lindon, in its original French, which accompanied the first edition in 1995, explaining the circumstances under which the play was first published.