Simone de Beauvoir

She never married but remained in life-long relationship with famous philosopher Jean Paul Sartre since October 1929.

Beauvoir adopted Sylvie Le Bon as her daughter who was her literary heir.

Simone de Beauvoir was born in Paris to Georges Bertrand de Beauvoir and Françoise Beauvoir on January 9, 1908. Her father was a legal secretary and her mother was the daughter of a wealthy banker. Her sister Helena was two years younger.

Her family lost most of their fortune after the First World War. Even though she was highly religious and God loving since childhood and intended to be a nun, she faced crisis of faith at the age of 14 and from then on remained an atheist throughout her life.

In 1925 she cleared baccalauréat exams in philosophy and mathematics.

In 1926 she obtained Certificates of Higher Studies in Latin and French literature.

She went to live with her grandmother to study Philosophy in Sorbonne. In 1927 she received Certificates in General Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Logic and Greek.

Simone de Beauvoir started her career as a teacher in 1931 in a lycée at Marseilles.

In 1932 she moved to Rouen to teach advanced literature and philosophy in the ‘Lycée Jeanne d'Arc’. As she advocated pacifism and was outspoken about the condition of women, she was officially admonished. Later in 1941 the Nazi Government discharged her from her post of teacher.

She wrote the novel ‘She Came to Stay’ during 1935-1937 and got it published in 1943. It was a success and she was acknowledged as a writer. Her other notable writings that followed during this period include ‘The Blood of Others’, ‘Who Shall Die?’ and ‘Men are Mortal’.

In 1943 she was again dismissed from teaching following complaints of moral corruption by parents of one of her female students. That brought an end to her teaching career.

Her remarkable essays on existentialist ethics include ‘Pyrrhus et Cinéas’ published in 1944 and ‘The Ethics of Ambiguity’ in1947.

‘The Second Sex’ remains her best philosophical work and is till date considered an important subject in dealing with oppression and liberation of women.

The Mandarins is also considered as one of her most successful books and fetched her highest literary award of France, the ‘Prix Goncourt’.