Becoming Beauvoir

Outline

Becoming Beauvoir (2019) is a biography of Simone de Beauvoir that challenges the common view of her as a follower of Jean-Paul Sartre. Drawing on newly available diaries and letters, Kate Kirkpatrick shows Beauvoir as an original philosopher who shaped existentialism and feminism in her own right. The book traces her life, relationships, and ideas, and explores how she became one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century.

• Becoming Beauvoir is a biography of Simone de Beauvoir that challenges the common view of her as a follower of Jean-Paul Sartre.
• Kirkpatrick draws on newly available diaries and letters to show Beauvoir as an original philosopher in her own right.
• The book argues that Beauvoir helped shape both existentialism and feminism through her own work, not only through her association with Sartre.
• By tracing her life, relationships and ideas together, the book shows how her experiences fed into her thinking.
• It explains how Beauvoir came to be counted among the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century.

Kate Kirkpatrick is a British philosopher and theologian who teaches at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on existentialism, French philosophy, and religion. Her books include Sartre on Sin, Sartre and Theology, and Becoming Beauvoir, which was widely praised for its fresh portrait of Simone de Beauvoir.