He interrupted his studies at the École Normale Supérieure of the University of Paris in 1926 to leave for Aden where he worked as tutor to the son of French-born businessman-millionaire Antonin Besse. He drew upon his six-month experience in Aden to write his first novella, "Aden Arabie", published in 1931. Nizan then entered into a number of miscellaneous jobs around the Communist Party of France (PCF), writing for its journal prominently and even, at one point, running a party bookshop in Paris. Nizan later took up a professorship teaching literature, during which time he took on a reputation among students as an affable and relaxed professor, sometimes even offering his students cigarettes during class. As a teacher, he was reticent about his own perspective on Marxist theory, instead encouraging his students to arrive independently at their own conclusions. Through this period, up to the onset of World War II, Nizan penned all of his major works, including "The Watchdogs", an exposé on materialist philosophy, and the novels "Antoine Bloye" and "The Conspiracy".