List with the main books of Simone de Beauvoir

In this lesson from a TEACHER, we will discuss main Simone de Beauvoir books, a benchmark in the history of Feminist movement and an essential reading for all those who want to delve into the concept. If you really want to understand the meaning of feminist revolution, the true meaning of it, you cannot stop reading this great thinker, who, ahead of her time, demands real equality for all women and at all levels, and fundamentally, at the cultural level, since it is the fundamental tool that will make effective economic, political, cultural, sexual equality, etc. If you want to know more about the work of Simone de Beauvoir, continue reading this article.

The prolific French philosopher wrote a multitude of books, mainly novels, essays, memoirs and diaries, in which, based on a terminology existentialist, she develops all her feminist thought, claiming equality in fact between women and men. Here are the main books by Simone de Beauvoir that will help you better understand her contribution to the history of philosophy and feminism:

Novels by Simone de Beauvoir

• The guest.
• The blood of the others
• All men are mortal
• Mandarins
• The beautiful pictures
• The broken woman
• When the spiritual predominates

Essays of Simone de Beauvoir

• What the action for
• For a moral of ambiguity
• Existentialism and the wisdom of the peoples
• America up to date
• The second sex
• The political thought of the right
• The long march
• Old age

Memories and diaries by Simone de Beauvoir:

• Naked america
• Memoirs of a formal young woman
• The fullness of life
• The force of things
• A very sweet death
• End of accounts
• The goodbye ceremony
• War diary
• Cahiers de jeunesse

Would you like to know more about the most important works of Simone de Beauvoir?

"The Second Sex" (1949)

The Second Sex is one of the fundamental works of Simone de Beauvoir and also one of the best works of feminist literature of all time. In this book, Beauvoir exhaustively analyzes the situation of women throughout history and in different contexts. The work establishes the n of gender equity and develops a theory that ends all prejudice related to women within society, and is committed to their inclusion in it, as an essential condition for coexistence in harmony.

"Memoirs of a formal young woman" (1959)

It is the first part of the memoirs that Beauvoir writes during her lifetime and in this work, the feminist philosopher recounts his transformation from a fine girl, to a self-made individual. It is a whole manifesto in favor of autonomy and self-knowledge and a commitment to the search for one's own identity.

"The fullness of life" (1960)

She continues the memories of her, from age 21 to 37, and in it, she makes some confessions about her and her life with Sartre, of which she was always in the shadow of her. She only wants to find herself, through these statements that she makes to the reader of her, in which she only tells what she wants.

In this book, Beauvoir affirms that she does not seek to create life lessons, but to narrate her own experiences with freedom and with her own reservations. She talks about her relationship with Sartre and recounts in detail life in France during WWII. She intensifies the personal search and it is impossible not to identify with the pain that she narrates her relationships and her lack of purpose in some points (which also exhibit certain overtones feminists).

"The force of things" (1963)

Describe one of the hardest stages in the life of the thinker French, from 37 years of age, and in this work, she questions all her previous thought of her. She is more mature, and wiser, but she is becoming more and more broken.

"The Broken Woman" (1968)

It constitutes a analysis of her own relationship with Sartre, a man who did not put her down, and for whom she felt both love and admiration. In this work, she describes what it means to be a woman in a time when so many social changes are taking place, of a woman experiencing the birth of feminism.

If you liked this article, you can read similar ones in our philosophy category.

Teresa López Pardina. Simone de Beauvoir: a 20th century philosopher. Ed. Publications of the University of Cádiz.

Simone de Beauvoir. The Second Sex. Ed. Chair.

Simone de Beauvoir. The Broken Woman. Editor and Distributor Hispano Americana.