The Mandarins

A Harper Perennial Modern Classics reissue of this unflinching examination ofpostwar French intellectual life and an amazing chronicle of love philosophyand pol... » 

A Harper Perennial Modern Classics reissue of this unflinching examination ofpostwar French intellectual life and an amazing chronicle of love philosophyand politics from one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century.An epic romance a philosophical argument and an honest and searing portrayalof what it means to be a woman this is Simone de Beauvoirs most famous andprofound novel. De Beauvoir sketches the volatile intellectual and politicalclimate of postwar France with amazing deftness and insight peopling herstory with fictionalisations of the most important figures of the era such asCamus Sartre and Nelson Algren. Her novel examines the painful split betweenpublic and private life that characterised the female experience in the mid20th century and addresses the most difficult questions of gender and choice.It is an astonishing work of intellectual athleticism yet also a movingromance a love story of passion and depth. Long out of print this masterpieceis now reissued as part of the Harper Perennial Modern Classics series so thata whole new generation can discover de Beauvoirs magic. «