Simone De Beauvoir

'One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman,' wrote Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) in her controversial bestseller The Second Sex (1949), widely acclaimed as the founding book of modern feminism. Beauvoir lived through some of the most dramatic and harrowing events of the twentieth century, a time of huge change for women across the world. Ursula Tidd illuminates these and many other facets of Beauvoir's complex personality: her relentless autobiographical drive, living life as a continually unfolding narrative; her personal and intellectual relationships, essentially lived as a series of dialogues with a variety of interlocutors, including Jean-Paul Sartre and Nelson Algren; her active involvement in political struggles; and how Beauvoir the woman became Beauvoir the myth.

This concise and up-to-date appraisal of the life and works of the quintessential feminist intellectual draws on the most recent scholarship on Beauvoir's work, and on newly published and extant volumes of her diaries and correspondence, to allow the reader unrivalled access to the voice of this pivotal modern figure.