"the Useless Mouths" and Other Literary Writings

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–86) was a French existentialist philosopher who employed a literary-philosophical method in her works, including Ethics of Ambiguity (1947) and The Second Sex (1949). Margaret A. Simons is Distinguished Research Professor Emerita at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and the author of Beauvoir and The Second Sex: Feminism, Race, and the Origins of Existentialism.Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir, adopted daughter and literary executor of Simone de Beauvoir, is the editor of Lettres à Sartre and many other works by Beauvoir. Marybeth Timmermann is a contributing translator and editor of Beauvoir's Philosophical Writings.

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2013.— Choice

• Foreword to the Beauvoir Series   ix   Sylvie Le Bon de BeauvoirAcknowledgments   xiIntroduction   1   Margaret A. Simons1. The Useless Mouths (A Play)   9   Introduction by Liz Stanley and Catherine Naji2. Short Articles on Literature   89   Introduction by Elizabeth Fallaize3. Existentialist Theater  125   Introduction by Dennis A. Gilbert4. A Story I Used to Tell Myself   151   Introduction by Ursula Tidd5. Preface to La Batarde by Violette Leduc   165   Introduction by Alison S. Fell6. What Can Literature Do?   189   Introduction by Laura Hengehold7. Misunderstanding in Moscow   211   Introduction by Terry Keefe8. My Experience as a Writer   275   Introduction by Elizabeth Fallaize9 Short Prefaces to Literary Works   303   Introduction by Eleanore Holveck10. Notes for a Novel   327   Introduction by Meryl AltmanContributors   379Index   385