Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986)

Death: 14th April 1986
Location: Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, Île-de-France, France
Cause of death: Pneumonia
Photo taken by: Wayne
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French writer, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist. While she did not consider herself a philosopher, Beauvoir had a significant influence on both feminist existentialism and feminist theory. 
She is best known for her novels, including She Came to Stay and The Mandarins, as well as her 1949 treatise The Second Sex, a detailed analysis of women's oppression and a foundational tract of contemporary feminism. 
In 1929 Beauvoir entered into a lifelong relationship with Jean Paul Sartre, she chose never to marry and did not set up a joint household with Sartre. Sartre and Beauvoir always read one another's work. Debates rage on about the extent to which they influenced each other in their existentialist works, such as Sartre's Being and Nothingness and Beauvoir's She Came to Stay
Her 1954 novel The Mandarins won her France's highest literary prize, the Prix Goncourt. The book follows the personal lives of philosophers and friends among Sartre and Beauvoir's intimate circle, including her relationship with American writer Nelson Algren, to whom the book was dedicated.

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