Simone de Beauvoir

"The Second Sex" (1949) argues that women have been systematically defined as "the Other" in relation to men across history, culture, and philosophy. Its most famous declaration—"one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman"—became a foundational concept of second-wave feminism.

De Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre maintained a lifelong intellectual and romantic partnership beginning in the late 1920s, though they never married and agreed to an open relationship. They exchanged ideas central to existentialist philosophy, though each published major works independently.

Yes, de Beauvoir was a celebrated novelist who won the Prix Goncourt for "The Mandarins" in 1954. She also wrote "She Came to Stay" (1943) and several volumes of memoirs, which are valued as both literature and as documents of 20th-century French intellectual life.

Yes, a new and more complete English translation by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier was published in 2009. Earlier translations by H.M. Parshley, dating from 1953, had been criticized for significant omissions and abridgments of Beauvoir's original text.