Simone de Beauvoir: A Biography

by Deirdre Bair

Book Overview

This definitive biography is based on five years of interviews with de Beauvoir, and is written with her full cooperation. Bair penetrates the mystique of this brilliant and often paradoxical woman, who has been called one of the great minds of the 20th century, and surely, one of the most famously unconventional figures of her generation. "As a reference work . . . Simone de Beauvoir can be considered definitive".--The Atlantic. 16-page photographic...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671606816
• ISBN13: 9780671606817
• Release Date: January 1990
• Publisher: Little Brown and Company
• Length: 718 Pages
• Weight: 2.60 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Complete

Really, this book was a page-turner, a book of facts so well-written it made one want to know more, more, more, even when the knowing was almost painful out of de Beauvoir empathy. I wanted to read it as a companion to de Beauvoir's autobiographical series and was particularly grateful to Bair for pointing out incidents in which de Beauvoir "guilded the lily" when she recounted her own life. De Beauvoir's autobiography and this make perfect companions for a study on auto/biography and its subjectivication. (Also see Silent Woman by Janet Malcom.) I had read previous biographical material on de Beauvoir, but none I ever felt was so complete, and helped me to know her so well. I strongly recommend this as history, literary criticism, psychology and philosophy.

A imformative story of an interesting life.

This biography adds to the memoirs de Beauboir has already written. It tells her complete life story and provides new information and viewpoints. It sometimes feels too long, but is usually clear and engaging.