Simone de Beauvoir did not consider herself a philosopher, but her enduring intellectual legacy betrays her own belief. Born in 1908 in Paris, France, Beauvoir excelled academically from a young age, eventually graduating from the prestigious Sorbonne. It was there that she met French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and began an unconventional relationship that defined much of her life, even as she fiercely maintained her independence.

Beauvoir’s first major published work was the 1943 novel She Came to Stay, a fictional account of her relationship with Sartre, followed by a prolific written output of essays, novels, plays, memoirs, travel journals, and newspaper articles in her lifetime. Her 1949 book The Second Sex is the most defining of her career. In it, Beauvoir examines the historical, cultural, and psychological construction of women in a male-dominated society. Although considered controversial at the time of its release, it is now considered a seminal feminist text. Toward the end of her career, Beauvoir wrote primarily about aging and death, exploring themes of mortality in works such as A Very Easy Death (1964), Old Age (1970), and Adieux: A Farewell to Sartre (1981). She died in 1986 at the age of 78.