Letters To Sartre

There is more than a whiff of Les Liaisons Dangereuses about these pages * Spectator *This is a vivid piece of unexpurgated social history, and an opportunity to hear a vigorous and innovative thinker…speaking in her abrasive, touching, breathtakingly candid private voice * Sunday Times *Wonderful… what really shines through is de Beauvoir’s simultaneously maintained autonomy and symbiotic relationship with Sartre, her “beloved little one”, along with their total commitment to a life spent in pursuit of ideals, together * Irish Times *

Simone de Beauvoir was born in Paris in 1908. In 1929 she became the youngest person ever to obtain the agregation in philosophy at the Sorbonne, placing second to Jean-Paul Sartre. She taught at the lycees at Marseille and Rouen from 1931-1937, and in Paris from 1938-1943. After the war, she emerged as one of the leaders of the existentialist movement, working with Sartre on Les Temps Mordernes. The author of several books including The Mandarins (1957) which was awarded the Prix Goncourt, de Beauvoir was one of the most influential thinkers of her generation. She died in 1986.