Simone de Beauvoir: The Image of Her (Paperback)

Vintage Classics, 2026, Paperback, 208 pages, 12.8 x 19.7

Laurence is a woman who appears to live an ideal life.

Weekends in the country, weekdays in Paris – her life features all the trappings of 1960s French bourgeoisie. She has money, a handsome husband, two daughters and a lover. She also has a successful career as an advertising copywriter, though her mind unbidden writes copy while she’s at home, and dreams of domesticity in the office.

But Laurence is a woman whose experience of life has always been overwritten by the expectation of perfection. It is only when her 10-year-old daughter, Catherine, starts to vocalise her despair about the unfairness of the world that Laurence begins to act, finally grappling with a life that prizes image over truth.

TRANSLATED BY LAUREN ELKIN