The Mandarins

A Harper Perennial Modern Classics reissue of this unflinching examination of post-war French intellectual life, and an amazing chronicle of love, philosophy and politics from one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century.

An epic romance, a philosophical argument and an honest and searing portrayal of what it means to be a woman, this is Simone de Beauvoir’s most famous and profound novel. De Beauvoir sketches the volatile intellectual and political climate of post-war France with amazing deftness and insight, peopling her story with fictionalisations of the most important figures of the era, such as Camus, Sartre and Nelson Algren. Her novel examines the painful split between public and private life that characterised the female experience in the mid-20th century, and addresses the most difficult questions of gender and choice.

It is an astonishing work of intellectual athleticism, yet also a moving romance, a love story of passion and depth. Long out of print, this masterpiece is now reissued as part of the Harper Perennial Modern Classics series so that a whole new generation can discover de Beauvoir’s magic.

Reviews

‘A remarkable novel.’ Iris Murdoch, Sunday Times

‘A dazzling panorama of the giants of the Left Bank.’ New Statesman

‘The characters, especially the women, are uninhibited and sometimes predatory. The dialogues are salty, frank and realistic. The characters’ amorous adventures are set down with microscopic exactitude.’ Guardian

‘There are few, a very few, novels from which one comes away with the feeling of having travelled, experienced, learned… such a book is The Mandarins.’ Bookman

About the author

Simon de Beauvoir was born in Paris in 1908. A close friend of the writer and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, and well-known as a leader of the Existentialist movement in Paris. Her famous feminist work, The Second Sex, was hailed as a landmark study of women, and her novels, including The Woman Destroyed and She Came to Stay, have become well-loved classics. She died in 1968.