Simone de Beauvoir

By the world-famous writer and feminist Simone de Beauvoir, here are three moving stories which eloquently express her understanding of women and the crises they face in mid-life.

The Woman Destroyed

The French writer depicts the sorrow and pain and her quiet acceptance of her mother's last days before death from cancer

A Very Easy Death

Of all the writing that emerged from the existentialist movement, Simone de Beauvoir's groundbreaking study of women will probably have the most extensive and enduring impact. It is at once a work of anthropology and sociology, of biology and psychoanalysis, from the pen of a writer and novelist of penetrating imaginative power. THE SECOND SEX stands, four decades after its first appearance, as the first landmark in the modern feminist upsurge that has transformed perceptions of the social relationship of man and womankind in our time.

The Second Sex

The Ethics of Ambiguity

Simone de Beauvoir’s early novel, written in 1954. The book describes her first love, a classmate named Elisabeth Lacoin ("Zaza") who died before age 22, and had as a teenager a "passionate and tragic" relationship with Beauvoir and Merleau-Ponty, then teaching at the same school. Disapproved by Sartre, the novel was deemed "too intimate" to be published during Beauvoir's lifetime.

The Inseparables

A never-before-published novel by the iconic Simone de Beauvoir of an intense and vivid girlhood friendship From the moment Sylvie and Andrée meet in their Parisian day school, they see in each other an accomplice with whom to confront the mysteries of girlhood. For the next ten years, the two are the closest of friends and confidantes as they explore life in a post-World War One France, and as Andrée becomes increasingly reckless and rebellious, edging closer to peril. Sylvie, insightful and observant, sees a France of clashing ideals and religious hypocrisy--and at an early age is determined to form her own opinions. Andrée, a tempestuous dreamer, is inclined to melodrama and romance. Despite their different natures they rely on each other to safeguard their secrets while entering adulthood in a world that did not pay much attention to the wills and desires of young women. Deemed too intimate to publish during Simone de Beauvoir's life, Inseparable offers fresh insight into the groundbreaking feminist's own coming-of-age; her transformative, tragic friendship with her childhood friend Zaza Lacoin; and how her youthful relationships shaped her philosophy. Sandra Smith's vibrant translation of the novel will be long cherished by de Beauvoir devotees and first-time readers alike.

A Never-Before-Published Novel

Inseparable

A beautiful actress's encounter with a man who claims to be immortal teaches the man how to enjoy life again, and offers the actress an opportunity to be immortal through her performances

A Novel

All Men are Mortal

'It is possible for man to snatch the world from the darkness of absurdity' How should we think and act in the world? These writings on the human condition by one of the twentieth century's great philosophers explore the absurdity of our notions of good and evil, and show instead how we make our own destiny simply by being. One of twenty new books in the bestselling Penguin Great Ideas series. This new selection showcases a diverse list of thinkers who have helped shape our world today, from anarchists to stoics, feminists to prophets, satirists to Zen Buddhists.

What Is Existentialism?

The Inseperables

Now backk in print, the lettes that caused a scandal wen first published, revealing de Beauvoir and Sartre as they had never been seen before.

Letters to Sartre

الجنس الآخر

Memorie di una ragazza perbene

Jean Blomart, a French resistance leader against the German forces of occupation, waits throughout an endless night for his wounded lover to die.

The Blood of Others

Set in Paris on the eve of World War II, and sizzling with love, anger and revenge, "She Came to Stay" explores the changes wrought in the soul of a woman and a city soon to fall.

She Came to Stay

Three stories that draw us into the lives of three women, all past their first youth, all facing unexpected crises. In the title story, the heroine's serenity is shattered when she learns that her husband is having an affair. In "The Age of Discretion, " a successful, happily married professor finds herself increasingly distressed by her son's absorption in his young wife and her worldly values. In "The Monologue, " a rich, spoiled woman, home alone on New Year's Eve, pours out a lifetime's rage and frustration in a harrowing diatribe. Enthralling as fiction, suffused with de Beauvoir's remarkable insights into women, La mujer rota is the work of a legendary writer at her best.

La Mujer Rota

«Je rêvais d'être ma propre cause et ma propre fin ; je pensais à présent que la littérature me permettrait de réaliser ce vœu. Elle m'assurerait une immortalité qui compenserait l'éternité perdue ; il n'y avait plus de Dieu pour m'aimer, mais je brûlerais dans des millions de cœurs. En écrivant une œuvre nourrie de mon histoire, je me créerais moi-même à neuf et je justifierais mon existence. En même temps, je servirais l'humanité : quel plus beau cadeau lui faire que des livres? Je m'intéressais à la fois à moi et aux autres ; j'acceptais mon incarnation mais je ne voulais pas renoncer à l'universel : ce projet conciliait tout ; il flattait toutes les aspirations qui s'étaient développées en moi au cours de ces quinze années.»

Mémoires d'une jeune fille rangée

Jean-Paul Sartre

Sartre's closest friend examines the last years of his life and presents a conversation between herself and Sartre which touches upon subjects including the origins of his philosophy, the conviction behind his activism, and the inspiration for his fiction

A Farewell to Sartre

Adieux

Newly translated and unabridged in English for the first time, Simone de Beauvoir's masterwork is a powerful analysis of the Western notion of "woman," and a groundbreaking exploration of inequality and otherness. This long-awaited new edition reinstates significant portions of the original French text that were cut in the first English translation. Vital and groundbreaking, Beauvoir's pioneering and impressive text remains as pertinent today as it was sixty years ago, and will continue to provoke and inspire generations of men and women to come.

Simone de Beauvoir

About

Books

Join the club