Overview

A Very Easy Death has long been considered one of Simone de Beauvoir's masterpieces. The profoundly moving, day-by-day recounting of her mother's death 'shows the power of compassion when it is allied with acute intelligence' (Sunday Telegraph). Powerful, touching, and sometimes shocking, this is an end-of-life account that no reader is likely to forget.

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9781804270448

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'The mother of 20th-century feminism.' - Joanna Biggs, London Review of Books

‘The mother of 20th-century feminism.’ — Joanna Biggs, London Review of Books ‘True and deeply moving.’ — Annie Ernaux, author of Getting Lost  ‘In every decade of my life since my 20s, I have been awed, confused, intrigued and inspired by Simone de Beauvoir’s attempt to live with meaning, pleasure and purpose.’ — Deborah Levy, author of Real Estate  ‘It was Alice Walker, Hélène Cixous, Angela Davis, Virginia Woolf, George Eliot, and Simone Weil and de Beauvoir who mattered most to me.’ — Zadie Smith, author of NW  ‘Beauvoir’s 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 

Author Information

Simone de Beauvoir was born in Paris in 1908. In 1929 she became the youngest person ever to obtain the agregation in philosophy at the Sorbonne, placing second to Jean-Paul Sartre. She taught at the lycees at 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 Mordernes. 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.

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