We can meet there at 9:30 am for coffee and croissants before the beginning of the presentation. 

Simone de Beauvoir’s younger sister was a painter, who left an impressive body of work, a women’s rights activist who supported us and even chaired one of the first  center for battered women’s in the East of France, near Strasbourg.

Hélène used to stay at my place when coming to Paris, at Montparnasse, near where Simone de Beauvoir lived. You can find more in my testimony on the two sisters called “The Beauvoir Sisters” also published in English by Seal Press.

We shall always remember her vitality, generosity, and talent. Please go to the blog of my website in French: www.claudinemonteil.com/fr/blog to discover new pictures of her and of her husband which I have never shawn before and which are part of y private collection.

She will always be in our spririt and in our heart.

My first mystery novel is just out:  ”Mathematical plots in Princeton”! 

Mathematicians, spies, and Wall Street at Princeton, and in the background the Institute for Advanced Study, where Albert Einstein lived and worked.

My heroine, Charlotte, arrives in Princeton to spend some time with her father, Jean-Claude Cavagnac, a famous mathematician at the Institute for Advanced Study.  But as she arrives from Paris, Cavagnac disappears. 

Then, his body is found in Carnegie lake. Suicide? Murder? Why? Envious colleagues? Bitter students ? A strategic mathematical discovery? Why the interest of the CIA, the FBI, the French secret service, a mysterious financial firm?  Are the French & the Americans really on the same side?  Can Charlotte risk getting involved?  Can she avoid it?

Simone de Beauvoir, modernité et engagement,

Simone de Beauvoir, modern and committed

Claudine Monteil,

Ed L’Harmattan ISBN 978-2-296-10025-1

   The second part of my book is called  “the literary project as the expression of freedom and social solidarity” and it develops a literary and academic analysis of her writings.

  I had the opportunity to talk about this matter in details with Simone de Beauvoir in the context of writing my PHD on her writings.  These pages in my book have been written when Simone de Beauvoir was still alive, and you will find her reaction to my comments. We did not always have the same approach on her characters in her novels and I had real fruitful and friendly discussions with her.

  Simone de Beauvoir read my PHD entirely before I received the best judgement from the jury.

  Hélène de Beauvoir, her sister, was at my PHD defence and supported some of my criticizing on her characters. As a result, the two sisters had quite a discussion about my comments after our return from the PHD defence.  Simone and I remained close friends until Beauvoir’s passing in 1986. Hélène used to stay at my apartment in Paris near the  Schoelcher street and these are happy moments I recount in Les Amants de la liberté,  Sartre et Beauvoir dans le siècle, Ed J’ai lu ISBN 978-2-290-31728-9  and  in The Beauvoir Sisters, Seal Press, Avalon group  ISBN 978-2-84612-2 vérifier ISBN

       I analyze the jobs and life attitudes of Beauvoir characters in the context of literary writing, and of the love of the male and female characters. There are between them striking differences which I detail. Creative women, in particular secondary characters, are criticized in Beauvoir’s writing.

      It was a frequent subject of discussion between Beauvoir and I. Despite the fact that I did make some remarks about it she would always answer me with warmth and affection. Walking me back to the entrance door of her apartment, she would blush and say to me these words I never forgot,  “Thank you for devoting time to my work.”

    I will never forget how humble she was as so few mention it nowadays. In a number of our meetings which were going to change women’s condition in France, she never mentioned her writings. She was too discreet and well educated.

  Simone knew that we all had read her writings and that they were an inspiration to me. This made our conversations even more interesting when we would chat on her writings, and I could feel she trusted me in spite of our age difference (forty two years).

Simone de Beauvoir, modernité et engagement,

Simone de Beauvoir, modern and committed

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

    General de Gaulle and Beauvoir finally agreed on one point; the access to contraception for young women of my generation, and therefore to the pill at a time when women had to wait to be 21 years old. Beauvoir got very involved in this struggle of the French Movement for Family Planning founded in 1960. As a pioneer she supported the action of the Doctor Marie-Andrée Lagroua-Weil-Hallé.  

       Thanks to Beauvoir and to these women, we were the first generation of women to have access to the pill, which gave us the opportunity to put into practice our slogan, “Our bodies belongs to us.” 

     Beauvoir had mentioned to me the support of a well-known man in France, Doctor Lucien Neuwirth. At the time, Neuwirth was one of the most renowned French resistance activist with De Gaulle under World War II.  Neuwirth went to talk to De Gaulle, then president of France, to apply for free permission of the pill. It was quite a tricky moment for this renowned resistance worker and you will find all the details about it in my book.  

     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.

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.   

       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.  

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.