"Salty, frank, and realistic." —
San Francisco Chronicle
In her most famous novel,
The Mandarins
, Simone de Beauvoir takes an unflinching look at Parisian intellectual society at the end of World War II. In fictionally relating the stories of those around her — Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Arthur Koestler, Nelson Algren — de Beauvoir dissects the emotional and philosophical currents of her time. At once an engrossing drama and an intriguing political tale,
is the emotional odyssey of a woman torn between her inner desires and her public life. "Much more than a roman
à
clef . . . a moving and engrossing novel." —
New York Times