A Very Easy Death

True and deeply moving. Annie Ernaux, winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize for Literature The mother of 20th-century feminism. Joanna Biggs, London Review of Books In every decade of my life since my 20s, I have been awed, confused, intrigued and inspired by Simone de Beauvoirs attempt to live with meaning, pleasure and purpose. Deborah Levy, author of Real Estate It was Alice Walker, Hlne Cixous, Angela Davis, Virginia Woolf, George Eliot, and Simone Weil and de Beauvoir who mattered most to me. Zadie Smith, author of NW Navigating the complexities of end-of-life with deep compassion and dignity, this moving book is steeped in empathy and the searching, thoughtful interrogation weve come to expect from de Beauvoir. Sinad Gleeson, author of Constellations Nowhere is de Beauvoirs rigorous honesty more visible than in this haunting account of the death of her mother... As she charts her last weeks and her abasement at the hands of doctors and illness, both hostility and unexpected love play themselves out on the page. Lisa Appignanesi, author of Everyday Madness It would be hard to think that Simone de Beauvoir who flaunted so many strictures of life, would accept death.... And the intention of this memoir, which is in part a requiem and in part an exorcism, is its disturbing, defiant insistence on the fact that this can only be an utterly lonely experience. Kirkus Beauvoirs graciously written memoirs carry distinct appeal in recording the emotional and intellectual birth pangs of a fascinating woman. Time This book is written with restrained emotion and a literalness, a faithfulness to fact, that is very moving coming from a woman whom we have known as dedicated to abstractions. ... it illustrates the general tragedy of the human condition through a particularized instance. A book of near despair, yet dignified. Library Journal [I]ts brevity ensures an accessibility and its precision stirs empathy. Sen Carlson, Oxford Review of Books

Simone de Beauvoir was born in Paris in 1908. In 1929 she became the youngest person ever to obtain the agrgation in philosophy at the Sorbonne, placing second to Jean-Paul Sartre. She taught at lyces in Marseille and Rouen from 1931-1937, and in Paris from 1938-1943. After the war, she emerged as one of the leaders of the existentialist movement, working with Sartre on Les Temps Modernes. The author of several books including The Mandarins (1957) which was awarded the Prix Goncourt, and The Second Sex, a foundational book for contemporary feminism, de Beauvoir was one of the most influential philosophers and novelists of her generation. She died in 1986.