The Modern Novel

Biography

Simone de Beauvoir is best remembered as a philosopher, a writer on politics, author of a first-class autobiography and, of course, the author of a ground-breaking work on feminism. But she did write a few novels. She was born in Paris in 1908. Her father was a lawyer who preferred the racetrack to the law. Her mother came from a family that had been prosperous till their bank failed in 1909. However, according to her autobiography, she had a happy childhood. She portrayed herself as a dutiful daughter but she had started to rebel against her mother’s Catholicism. She became very close to her friend Elisabeth Mabille (known as Zaza). In 1929, two key events occurred. Firstly, Zaza died, apparently of meningitis, though de Beauvoir blamed it on Zaza’s parents strict Catholic views. Then, that same year, she met Jean-Paul Sartre. She came second in the exams at the Sorbonne, where she was studying (Sartre came first) and was the youngest person to pass the exam. After the Sorbonne, she became a high school teacher in various schools in Marseilles, Rouen and Paris. In Rouen she met Olga Kosakiewicz, one of her students, and both Sartre and she had an affair with her. This relationship would be immortalized in her first novel, L’invitée (She Came to Stay).

When war was declared, she was separated from Sartre for the first time since they met, as he was called up and later taken prisoner of war. When he was released in 1941, they decided to give up teaching and be more involved in writing and political activism. Though they were together (though they had separate flats), they both had affairs with others. After the war, for example, when de Beauvoir went to the United States, she had an affair with Nelson Algren. During the war, they were involved in the resistance. After the war, they became the best-known left-wing intellectual couple in the world and were involved in many major left-wing causes. They produced the highly influential magazine Les Temps Modernes.

For the rest of her life, de Beauvoir produced a string of highly praised novels, philosophical works and memoirs, though she may best be remembered for her important work on feminism, Le deuxième sex (The Second Sex). However, her series of memoirs are almost as important and are still very well worth reading. Her four novels give a complex and important picture of Parisian intellectual life of the time. She was also, of course, a major influence on Sartre. She died of pneumonia in 1986.

Books about Simone de Beauvoir

Deirdre Bair: Simone de Beauvoir: A Biography

Other sites

Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986)
Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986)
Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986)
Abortion’s Mother: Early Works of Simone de Beauvoir
Lisa Appignanesi’s top 10 books by and about Simone de Beauvoir
Stand By Your Man – The strange liaison of Sartre and Beauvoir
A Transatlantic Love Affair
The Second Sex (a good chunk of the text)
Simone de Beauvoir Institute
Interview
Interview
Simone de Beauvoir (in French)
9 janvier 1908/Naissance de Simone de Beauvoir (in French)
Simone de Beauvoir, Mémorialiste (in French)
Simone, la scandaleuse (in French)