It is my pleasure  to present you the new essay written by Dr Alison Holland, member of the international Simone de Beauvoir society. Dr  Alison Holland is  Associate Dean for Student Wellbeing, formerly Head of Modern Foreign Languages and Principal Lecturer in French, Northumbria University, UK. She has just published Excess and Trangression in Simone de Beauvoir’s fiction: The discourse of Madness (publisher Ashgate, ISBN:  978-0-7546-5152-1)

     Alison Holland’s innovative book fills a gap in Beauvoir studies by focusing on the writer’s frequently neglected novels and short stories, L’Invitée, Les Mandarins, Les Belles Images, and La Femme rompue. In illuminating the density and rich complexity of Beauvoir’s style, Holland challenges the often accepted view that Beauvoir’s writing is flat, detached, and controlled, revealing, rather, that her prose is frequently disrupted and inflected by forceful emotion. 
 

    Holland shows that excess and transgression are intrinsic qualities of the texts, and argues that Beauvoir’s textual strategies duplicate madness in her fiction. Holland’s reading of Beauvoir’s fiction demonstrates the extent to which Beauvoir’s fiction undermines an ideologically patriarchal position on language. Her study is important not only for its re-evaluation of Beauvoir as a fiction writer but for its contribution to the wider debate on madness and literature.

    I highly recommand you the reading of this essay.

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Simone de Beauvoir, modernité et engagement,

Simone de Beauvoir, modern and committed

Claudine Monteil, Ed L’Harmattan ISBN 978-2-296-10025-1 

 In the 1970’s, I met Michel Foucault who knew my parents when they were students together at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (equivalent of Harvard in France). Witty and extremely bright, I was pleased to have discussions with him on our actions for human rights. One day though, his tone changed. He became more sarcastic, especially when I was mentioning our feminist struggles to change women’s condition in France. 

    I spoke about it to Simone de Beauvoir: “It does not surprise me, we have had disagreements.” Foucault had heard about my friendship with Beauvoir. She reminded me that she and Sartre are criticized Foucault’s book Les Mots et les Choses. I mention in detail the political and philosophical issues, which could have explained this mutual hostility. 

 It is with regret that I watched this disagreement, because it seems to me that Beauvoir and Foucault could have agreed on a certain causes. They both fought for human rights. They were activists together but never reconciled. In this chapter I explain why and give details of it.   

Simone de Beauvoir, modernité et engagement, Simone de Beauvoir, modern and committedClaudine Monteil, Ed L’Harmattan ISBN 978-2-296-10025-1 

            I report on the trip Beauvoir and Sartre  made to Cuba in and their discussions with Castro and Che Guevara, and analyze their way of looking for a third way of governing between Communism and capitalism.  

In this regard, I again had the opportunity to consult the archives of the French Ministry of Foreign and European affairs (equivalent of the State Department in the USA) . I quote the detailed report of the French ambassador in Cuba in March 1960 on statements of Beauvoir and Sartre about their opinions regarding Cuba, and on the comments of Castro and Guevara about Beauvoir and Sartre.  It differs from Beauvoir’s recollections in her Memoirs where she was so enthousiastic about their meetings with Castro. According to the French ambassador, Castro and Che Guevara consider Sartre too patronizing and giving too many advices when he actually had never participated in a revolution.

It is important to remember that at the same time the French government was very concerned about Beauvoir and Sartre’s activism supporting Algerian independence.  I also analyze the evolution of Beauvoir’s judgement on Castro and Cuba, and her influence on Cuba’s reputation abroad, something that was probably underestimated by Castro himself. Beauvoir was in the end very critical of Castro.

I hope these lines written by Gloria .F. Orenstein, one of Hélène de Beauvoir’s dear friends, will make you feel to know Hélène de Beauvoir even more:

My Existentialist Meeting with Helene de Beauvoir and

How it Transformed my Life

Gloria F. Orenstein,

Prof. of Comparative Literature

     It was during the year 1974—75 that I  first met Helene de Beauvoir, and our astounding encounter transformed my life.  At the time I was an Adjunct Prof. of English at Douglass College of Rutgers University where I taught a Senior Seminar on Women and Art.  I was also a divorced mother of two teen-aged daughters.  I knew that my job with only a one year contract would probably not be extended, and  I was in a period of extreme anxiety over all the problems that my situation posed, both financial, and also intellectual and social.

      One day I took my students to tour the art galleries in New York, and I discovered that Helene de Beauvoir was being included in a group show near

       I was in a moment of crisis.  I hesitated to tell her about all the problems I faced that year, but she insisted on hearing everything…. from the story of my divorce to my need for a permanent teaching job.  It was also possibly significant that my two daughters, the older with dark hair, the younger a blonde, seemed to remind her of Simone and herself in their youth.  An immediate affection and friendship developed between us.  Then, suddenly, she spoke the words that were to transform my life.  After reciting the litany of my problems, and expecting a sigh of commiseration, I was surprised when Helene said:  “Gloria, Congratulations on choosing your new life!  You can now create your future in freedom! This is a wonderful moment for you, and I wish you the greatest of success.!”  I was speechless. At once I realized that she had completely turned my story around—from one of a deepening crisis to one of existential liberation, and I was also well prepared to “hear” this version and to receive its meaning with the resonance of my academic understand of Existentialism.  I decided, on the spot, to take her up on this suggestion—to go forth and create my life in freedom and with all the optimism I had experienced as I listened to her speak.  I was already involved in creating The Woman’s Salon for Literature in N.Y., and at that moment I realized that I could reframe my life story, and see it as a time of transformation and liberation. It was an Existentialist, feminist CLICK!  

      Over the years our friendship grew. I visited Helene in Goxwiller and I created my salon in NY.   In 1978—79 , when I was directing the Rutgers Junior Year in France, I also created a salon in Paris, known as Le Lieu Dit, held chez Yolaine de Villemaire ,( known as Ygrecque), the first feminist writer published by Les Editions des Femmes. Le Lieu Dit was located near the Pantheon, and by day the “local”, her apartment, was a salon de the.   In the evening it became a feminist salon in the arts.    On weekends when we did not have a salon, I would go to visit Helene in Goxwiller, and I spent the Christmas and New Years vacation with her in Trebbiano.  Eventually Helene  traveled to

    Eventually the couple visited Helene in Goxwiller, which was like a dream come true for my son-in-law.  It is absolutely obvious to me that had I not met Helene de Beauvoir that day in New York,  my life would have taken a different turn, and I would not have been released  from my crisis and launched on the path I have followed ever since. . It was Helene de Beauvoir  who liberated me to reinterpret my life in the light of Existentialism.  I will always cherish this memory, and be grateful to her for  her generoisity , her friendship, and for the integrity of her  Exisitentialist vision.  

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Simone de Beauvoir, modernité et engagement, Simone de Beauvoir, modern and committedClaudine Monteil, Ed L’Harmattan ISBN 978-2-296-10025-1  

            When I was walking in the streets of Paris next to Simone de Beauvoir, I noticed that she would always move backward and have a moment of hesitation if she was approached by a stranger. I knew that this was because she was traumatized by personal threats during the Algerian war for independence.  Her sister, the painter Hélène de Beauvoir told me that Simone received many death threats and Sartre’s apartment was bombed, so they had to move and hide in different locations for almost two years. In my essay I report on Beauvoir’s support for the independence struggles of colonized countries and people who were victims of colonialism as recorded in  impressive essays and criticism that her journal Les Temps Modernes (The Modern Times) published for many years. These reports are rarely referenced today but because of the resurgence of torture and colonialism, this work has renewed relevance {and can provide valuable ideas and strategies for countering non-democratic movements.}  

            I have also included the entire text of the Manifesto of the 121, a statement by Beauvoir, Sartre, and others opposing the Algerian war. In this powerfully voiced appeal, they encouraged French soldiers to desert and thus to refuse to be complicit in the oppression of the Algerian people.  I also describe the difficulties that Beauvoir and many intellectuals endured after the publication of the Manifesto, including loosing their jobs and being blacklisted from many occupations.  It is noteworthy that Clara Malraux, wife of the French writer André Malraux, and her daughter Florence, signed the Manifesto while Malraux was Cabinet Member for Cultural Affairs for French president General de Gaulle.  The Manifesto created quite an uproar and inspired feminists to write the Manifesto of 343 in favour of free abortion in 1971. 

            Beauvoir also wrote a very well-known preface to {title} the book by the prominent lawyer Gisèle Halimi about Djamila Boupacha, a young woman who was reported to have been tortured by French troops based in Algeria during the war of independence.  

            In this passage of the essay I also analyze Beauvoir’s reaction in her final years to the condition of women in the Third World countries. She was very concerned about the power of  religion against women’s rights. And  I show how she and Sartre  became extremely popular in the Third World because of this struggle.  

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Simone de Simone de Beauvoir, modernité et engagement, Simone de Simone de Beauvoir, modern and committedClaudine Monteil, Ed L’Harmattan ISBN 978-2-296-10025-1             In this essay I examine Beauvoir’s difficult and contentious relationship with the USSR.   In 1956, she had the courage to provide the Hungarian people a forum to tell detailed stories of their resistance to the brutal Communist invasion in a remarkable special issue of Les Temps Modernes. My essay provides quotations from this issue, and in this essay I give the details of the evolution of her relationship with the Hungarian rebels and with the French left. 

            The title of the Beauvoir’s articles, such as “The Years of Intellectual Terror (1949-1953)”, are in themselves polemics, and reveal that she was quite depressed during this era.  At the time when the French left needed to be united on the question of the Algerian war, internal fights divided the opposition. Beauvoir, who was viciously attacked by many on the Left when The Second Sex was published, was attacked yet again, sometimes brutally, by the Communists.              I spoke with Beauvoir about these attacks on her political work, and she reminded me that since in the 1970s we were also dismissed and denigrated because we were fighting for women’s rights. “One gets used to it. We just need to continue,” she said.

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Simone de Simone de Beauvoir, modernité et engagement, Simone de Simone de Beauvoir, modern and committedClaudine Monteil, Ed L’Harmattan ISBN 978-2-296-10025-1) 

            Beauvoir’s work was very popular in the United States after World War II.

          Academics, philosophers and writers were acquainted with existentialism, the philosophy of freedom. Sartre, as a man and as writer (no women writers were invited at the time) had gone to the US and met writers and the media.  Beauvoir had travelled to the U.S. before she finished writing The Second Sex. In my essay, I analyze how her relationships with her intellectual companion and lover Nelson Algren, and the AfroAmerican writer Richard Wright  (whose writings she published in translation in Les Temps Modernes) made her both an intriguing and puzzling figure during the Cold War.

         Ironically, the United States was the literary market in which her work was the most popular. Her book, The Old Age (La Vieillesse) sold hundreds of thousands of copies in a few weeks.  In the context of the Cold War, I also analyze Beauvoir’s essay, “A Transatlantic Affair: letters to Nelson Algren”” a collection of day-by-day letters to Nelson Algren.  

            Further, I quote diplomatic reports mentioning how Beauvoir’s popularity surprised French diplomats in embassies abroad. And, having been a friend of hers, I explore how her relationship to the United States became less contentious and more serene as a result of her connections to the international women’s movement.