With the publication of her classic manifesto of the liberated woman, The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir became an intellectual force that the world  could not ignore. Her ideas, although extremely controversial, were expressed with a power and a passion that inspired a generation of women to explore their own lives and to question the values they had been taught… When Simone met the young Jean Paul Sartre, she was instantly attracted to him, having finally found a man who affair, however, was anything but traditional… Simone de Beauvoir’s work included novels, a play, and nonfiction. Her memoirs, written in four volumes, present her own view point of her struggles and achievements, but leave many questions unanswered.- Calude Francis and Fernande Gontier have authored critical works on Simone de Beauvoir. Ms. Francis teaches at the University of Southern Illinois. Both authors currently live in St. Louis, Missouri.

– “The comradeship that welded our lives together made a superfluous mockery of any other bond we might have forged for ourselves What, for instance, was the point of living under the same roof when the whole world was our common property? Why fear to set great distances between us when we could never truly be parted?” – Simone De Beauvoir