A Dangerous Liaison A Revelatory New Biography of Simone DeBeauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre

by Seymour-Jones, Carole

• ISBN13: 9781590202685
• ISBN10: 1590202686
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-09-03
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams

Summary

The first ever dual biography of Jean Paul Sartre and Simone DeBeauvoir, A Dangerous Liaisontells the intense, passionate, and sometimes painful story of how two brilliant freethinkers, lovers, and rivals came to share a relationship that lasted more than fifty years. Moving from the corridors of the Sorbonne to the cafés of Paris’s Left Bank, we discover how the strikingly beautiful and gifted young Simone DeBeauvoir came to fall in love with the squinting, arrogant, hard drinking Jean-Paul Sartre. We learn about that first summer of 1929, filled with heated debates that went on long into the night, sexual rivalry and betrayal, and the dangerous ideas that led people to experiment with new ways of behaving. We hear how Sartre compromised with the Nazis and fell into a Soviet honey-trap. Thanks to recently discovered letters written by the avowed feminist DeBeauvoir, Seymour-Jones reveals the darker, more dangerous side to their philosophy of free love, including Simone’s lesbianism and her pimping of younger girls for Jean-Paul in order to keep his love. Finally available in the U.S., this is a compelling and fascinating account of what lay behind the legend that this brilliant, tempestuous couple created.

Author Biography

Carole Seymour-Jones was born in North Wales and educated at Oxford and Sussex Universities. Her recent biography Painted Shadow: The Life of Vivienne Eliot was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize. She is the chair of the Writers in Prison Committee of English PEN, and co-editor of Another Sky: Voices of Conscience from Around the World , a collection of pieces by writers imprisoned for expressing their views.