Covering the years 1944 to 1952, this volume of the autobiography of legendary feminist and writer Simone de Beauvoir gives us not only an intimate account of her relationship with Sartre, but also a wonderful portrait of Parisian intellectual life. During this troubled period, French intellectuals grappled with the horrors of the Holocaust, the onset of the Cold War, and the beginning of colonial wars in Vietnam and Algeria. Beauvoir weaves memorable descriptions and anecdotes about leading members of the French postwar scene, including Genet, Camus, Richard Wright, Artaud, and Cocteau. This is also a chronicle of her romance with novelist Nelson Algren and of her struggle to live as an independent woman and writer.