A landmark collection of Beauvoir's literary writings''The Useless Mouths'' and Other Literary Writings brings to English-language readers literary writings--several previously unknown--by Simone de Beauvoir. Culled from sources including various American university collections, the works span decades of Beauvoir's career. Ranging from dramatic works and literary theory to radio broadcasts, they collectively reveal fresh insights into Beauvoir's writing process, personal life, and the honing of her philosophy.The volume begins with a new translation of the 1945 play The Useless Mouths, written in Paris during the Nazi occupation. Other pieces were discovered after Beauvoir's death in 1986, such as the 1965 short novel ''Misunderstanding in Moscow,'' involving an elderly French couple who confront their fears of aging. Two additional previously unknown texts include the fragmentary ''Notes for a Novel,'' which contains the seed of what she later would call ''the problem of the Other,'' and a lecture on postwar French theater titled Existentialist Theater. The collection notably includes the eagerly awaited translation of Beauvoir's contribution to a 1965 debate among Jean-Paul Sartre and other French writers and intellectuals, ''What Can Literature Do?''Prefaces to well-known works such as Bluebeard and Other Fairy Tales, La B'tarde, and James Joyce in Paris: His Final Years are also available in English for the first time, alongside essays and other short articles. A landmark contribution to Beauvoir studies and French literary studies, the volume includes informative and engaging introductory essays by prominent and rising scholars.
Foreword to the Beauvoir Series / Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir Acknowledgments; Introduction / Margaret A. Simons 1. The Useless Mouths (A Play) / Introduction by Liz Stanley and Catherine Naji; 2. Short Articles on Literature / Introduction by Elizabeth Fallaize; 3. Existentialist Theater / Introduction by Dennis A. Gilbert; 4. A Story I Used to Tell Myself / Introduction by Ursula Tidd; 5. A Preface to La Batarde by Violette Leduc / Introduction Alison S. Fell; 6. What Can Literature Do? / Introduction by Laura Hengehold; 7. Misunderstanding in Moscow / Introduction by Terry Keefe; 8. My Experience as a Writer / Introduction by Elizabeth Fallaize; 9. Short Prefaces to Literary Works / Introduction by Eleanore Holveck; 10. Notes for a Novel / Introduction by Meryl Altman Contributors
''This collection of previously untranslated pieces by Simone de Beauvoir makes available for the first time in English a variety of literary writings that are also of philosophical interest. As with previous volumes in the Beauvoir Series, ''The Useless Mouths'' and Other Literary Writings breaks new ground, and it will become indispensible to Beauvoir scholars.''--Claudia Card, author of Confronting Evils: Terrorism, Torture, Genocide''This collection of Beauvoir's literary works not only presents us with further evidence of the importance of Beauvoir's existentialist literary style but also gives new insight into her thinking about aesthetics, existentialism, intersubjectivity, aging, and her relationship with Sartre. In addition, here we see some of her most incisive engagements with her critics and critics of existentialism more generally.''--Kelly Oliver, author of Animal Lessons: How They Teach Us to Be Human
