Simone de Beauvoir

Simone Lucie-Ernestine-Marie-Bertrand de Beauvoir was born in 1908. She was a French writer and feminist, a member of the intellectual fellowship of philosopher-writers who have given a literary transcription to the themes of Existentialism. She is known primarily for her treatise Le Deuxieme Sexe, 2 vol (The Second Sex) a scholarly and passionate plea for the abolition of what she called the myth of the eternal feminine. This seminal work became a classic of feminist literature. Schooled in private institutions, de Beauvoir attended the Sorbonne, where, in 1929, she passed her agregation in philosophy and met Jean-Paul Sartre, beginning a lifelong association with him. Her novels expound the major Existential themes, demonstrating her conception of the writer's commitment to the times, in addition to treating feminist issues, de Beauvoir was concerned with the issue of ageing, which she addressed in Une Mort tres douce (1964; A Very Easy Death). She died in 1986.