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The Second Sex by Simone De Beauvoir
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The Second Sex

$37.50

Get for $14.99 with membership
Length 39 hours 9 minutes
Language English
Narrators Ellen Archer & Judith Thurman

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Translators Constance Borde & Sheila Malovany-Chevallier
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UNABRIDGED AND AVAILABLE ON AUDIO FOR THE FIRST TIME

Simone de Beauvoir’s essential masterwork is a powerful analysis of the Western notion of “woman,” and a revolutionary exploration of inequality and otherness. This unabridged edition of the text reinstates significant portions of the original French text that were cut in the first English translation, and is now available on audio for the very first time. Vital and groundbreaking, Beauvoir’s pioneering and impressive text remains as pertinent today as when it was first published, and will continue to provoke and inspire generations of men and women to come.

Simone de Beauvoir was born in Paris in 1908. In 1929 she became the youngest person ever to obtain the agrégation in philosophy at the Sorbonne, placing second to Jean-Paul Sartre. She taught at lycées at Marseille and Rouen from 1931 to 1937, and in Paris from 1938 to 1943. After the war, she emerged as one of the leaders of the existentialist movement, working with Sartre on Les Temps Modernes. The author of several books, including The Mandarins (1957), which was awarded the Prix Goncourt, Beauvoir was one of the most influential thinkers of her generation. She died in 1986.

Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier, both American, are longtime residents of France and former teachers at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris.

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In celebration of Independent Bookstore Day, shop our limited-time sale on bestselling audiobooks from April 22nd-28th. Don’t miss out—purchases support your local bookstore!

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Reviews

Praise from the UK for the new edition of The Second Sex:
 
“[A] masterpiece. . . . Restores essential passages that have been missing for 60 years.” —The Times
 
“Groundbreaking. . . . A fresh, much expanded, more intelligible book which repays re-reading by adherents of the old version, and cries out for attention from young women who have not been exposed to this most powerful of feminist thinkers. The Second Sex [is] the foundation text of second-wave feminism. It is probably the most important and influential philosophical treatise of the 20th century.” —The Irish Times
 
The Second Sex is an inquiry into a subject with profound implications for the entire human race, and its ideas are as fresh and inspiring as they were when [Beauvoir] began work. . . . Now Beauvoir’s great work is available in a full English translation for the first time. . . . It is a fine piece of work, a lucid translation.” —The Independent Expand reviews
Celebrate indie bookstores with our limited-time sale! Shop the sale