How Simone Became Beauvoir: A Whole Life

Simone de Beauvoir is considered one of the most influential intellectuals of the 20th century. As a symbol of women's liberation, she inspired and scandalized her generation through her unconventional relationships. As a philosopher and writer, she won significant literary awards and changed the way we approach gender issues with her book The Second Sex. Despite her successes, however, she wondered if she was underestimating herself.
Although her relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre has been recorded as one of the legendary love affairs of the last century, for Beauvoir it came at a cost: for decades she remained in the shadow of the existentialist philosopher. In recent years, diaries and letters have come to light revealing the ingenuity of her own philosophy as well as the position of other lovers in her life.
This groundbreaking biography draws on unpublished sources to tell the fascinating story of how Simone became Beauvoir, the woman who even today challenges and inspires us.

Simone de Beauvoir's life became a symbol of success for generations of women who were no longer content to "dream men's dreams." She was "the feminist voice of the 20th century" – a philosopher whose thought demonstrably changed the course of legislation and many lives.
[…] Beauvoir saw herself as an evolving process that never stopped. Time passes, dreams change. The individual moments in Beauvoir's evolutionary process were very different from each other. If there is one thing we can learn from her life, it is this: No one evolves alone, no one becomes herself alone.