When her mother was in the hospital with terminal cancer, Simone had time to reminisce about her mother’s early life, as Simone and her sister, Poupette, prepared to face the decision of whether to prolong a life when it is full of suffering. Like most people, they believed that it would be better to die than to continue to suffer, but their mother had a very different view of the matter. Françoise de Beauvoir had finally found happiness in her life, and she truly believed she could find happiness in her own suffering.

Considered by many to be the master work by Simone de Beauvoir, A Very Easy Death focuses on death and the other limitations in one’s life and with what attitude one approaches them. Through her mother’s beauty, her smile, and her pride in her life and in herself, Simone learned that to be human and to have individual choice are the most important aspects of existence.

Finalist for the French-American Florence Gould Translation Prize

A novel by the iconic Simone de Beauvoir of an intense and vivid girlhood friendship that, unpublished in her lifetime, displays “Beauvoir’s genius as a fiction writer” (Wall Street Journal)

From the moment Sylvie and Andree meet in their Parisian day school, they see in each other an accomplice with whom to confront the mysteries of girlhood. For the next ten years, the two are the closest of friends and confidantes as they explore life in a post-World War One France, and as Andree becomes increasingly reckless and rebellious, edging closer to peril.

Sylvie, insightful and observant, sees a France of clashing ideals and religious hypocrisy–and at an early age is determined to form her own opinions. Andree, a tempestuous dreamer, is inclined to melodrama and romance. Despite their different natures they rely on each other to safeguard their secrets while entering adulthood in a world that did not pay much attention to the wills and desires of young women.

Deemed too intimate to publish during Simone de Beauvoir’s life, Inseparable offers fresh insight into the groundbreaking feminist’s own coming-of-age; her transformative, tragic friendship with her childhood friend Zaza Lacoin; and how her youthful relationships shaped her philosophy. Sandra Smith’s vibrant translation of the novel will be long cherished by de Beauvoir devotees and first-time readers alike.

UNABRIDGED AND AVAILABLE ON AUDIO FOR THE FIRST TIME

Simone de Beauvoir’s essential masterwork is a powerful analysis of the Western notion of “woman,” and a revolutionary exploration of inequality and otherness. This unabridged edition of the text reinstates significant portions of the original French text that were cut in the first English translation, and is now available on audio for the very first time. Vital and groundbreaking, Beauvoir’s pioneering and impressive text remains as pertinent today as when it was first published, and will continue to provoke and inspire generations of men and women to come.