I read this novella in an afternoon - I was enraptured with this beautiful tale of female friendship and could feel Simone’s pain at the loss of her beloved friend Zaza. Very pleased penguin made the choice to publish this in English!

This is the story of an intense female friendship, set within French society in the early part of the twentieth century. The narrator, Sylvie, meets her friend Andrée at the age of nine. We see Andrée through her eyes and we watch the development of a close intellectual relationship as well as a firm emotional bond between the two girls. We learn very little about Sylvie but we watch as Andrée struggles with the constraints of her family and the religious and social milieu within which she grows up and is effectively trapped. We share Sylvie's growing concern about Andrée's mental and physical health and we watch Sylvie's increasing resentment of Andrée's mother and the man who professes to love her, both of whom she clearly blames for Andrée's fate.

The foreword (by Deborah Levy), the translator's note (by Lauren Elkins) and the afterword all site this short novel in the context of the life of Simone de Beauvoir (indeed, one might say that, as a barely fictionalised memoir, it is "inseparable" from her life) and one wonders what the people who appear in the story would have thought about the depiction of Andrée/Zaza, and of themselves.

The book reminded me a little of Elana Ferrante's Neapolitan novels, also based around an intense female friendship set within a constricted social context.

I had not read any of Simone de Beauvoir's work since my college days, but my interest was piqued when this previously unpublished novella appeared. As a historian I am always intrigued when books by very well known authors are published after their death and it gets me asking all sort of questions as to why the author did not want to have the work published previously. But The Inseparables was certainly worth the wait for the reader and what makes this novella even more appealing is how it is bookended by a thoughtful and clever introduction by Deborah Levy and ends with a poignant and insightful afterword by Simone de Beauvoir's adopted daughter, Slyvie le Bon de Beauvoir, which really does allow the reader to go a little deeper into the world of the author from the viewpoint of someone who knew her incredibly well. The book, originally written in French in 1954, is translated superbly by Lauren Elkin and her clear footnotes add subtlety and meaning to certain choices of words and phrases. All together a great way of presenting this new work by a great author.
The story draws once again on real characters from de Beauvoir's life and focuses it's attention on the character of Andree, who is the avatar for the real life Elizabeth Lacoin (known as Zaza) who had had a profound impact on the author right from their first meeting in a convent school when they were young girls and whose early death had been one of the great tragedies in Simone's life. Simone de Beauvoir writes herself as Sylvie, who narrates the whole novella, allowing us to really get a strong sense of the intimate feelings that Sylvie has for Andree and in turn of course Simone for Zaza. These feelings were unrequited although they did have an incredibly close friendship ( despite having to be very formal to behave appropriately for the time - even referring to each other in the formal 'vous' manner). Andree's mother in the story is the highly demanding and respectable Madame Gallard and her character and her thoughts towards all the other characters show reveal so much about society at the time.
These very strong feelings which Sylvie has for Andree are perhaps the reason why this book was thought maybe too intimate to be published earlier. Times have certainly changed and to the modern reader we are reading a beautifully written story of two girls growing up, one of whom is clearly in love with the other ,whilst we are able to explore with ease the societal constraints and the influence of family and religion at the time.
The novella ends with the death of Andree and Sylvie placing three red roses on her grave - this is a moment which really takes your breath away and is made even more powerful when one knows the enormous impact Zaza's death had on Simone de Beauvoir and how even after 25 years she still felt compelled to write with such intimate and emotionally charged writing.

Please read it, it won't take long and you will be very glad you did.

With enormous thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for a wonderful read.

This was my first taste of writing by Simone de Beauvoir and rather overdue. I was surprised at how easy to read it was and I really enjoyed it. I will seek out more of her work now.

Simone de Beauvoir was a superb writer even if most of her works are not well known now. The Mandarins and Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter are depiction of an era and of a social class.
This novella is very intimate, poignant and full of emotions. She writes about a personal experience and makes you feel what she felt.
The characters are vivid, well written and impressive.
I was happy to read something new and it made me think I'd like to read her other book.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Written in 1954, five years after the publication of the essay The Second Sex, the autobiographical novel The Inseparables tells the story of a simple friendship and all that it can teach us. The manuscript, a shocking and intimate story of a life-and-death friendship, was published more than half a century later by her foster daughter. Nine-year-old Sylvie - in whose form Simone de Beauvoir painted herself as a child - attends the Adélaide Catholic Girls' School, where a new student arrives one autumn day: a short, brown-haired, lively, naughty little girl, Andrée. The two of them soon make friends, fried and cooked together. Their teachers also call them: they are inseparable. Sylvie is enchanted by Andrée, admiring her sharp wit, boldness, versatile talent.

You know, her girlfriend is a special creature, and she hangs on it with passionate love - the first big emotional flare of her life. Not only do the girls resemble each other in that they grow up in an upscale, affluent family and receive a strict Catholic upbringing: they both rebel against the bony civic customs and traditions, the fate of women forced upon them. Together, Sylvie and Andrée experience the limitations and pitfalls of their unfolding femininity and sexuality, their spiritual rebellion. But while one of them eventually manages to gain her independence and freedom, the fate of the other takes a tragic turn. In the novel, the author portrays her great youthful love for her friend Zaza. Zaza's tragic death, provoked by the prejudices and injunctions that characterized the society of that time, was to haunt Simone de Beauvoir for the rest of her life.

The inseparable ones stage the sexual and intellectual awakening of two "well-behaved" and rebellious young girls in an environment that seeks to prevent them from becoming free and thinking women and lock them in the role of wife and mother in the service of society. The text depicts with emotion and acumen the experiences that underlie the great feminist philosopher's rebellion and work - her dramatic liberation and the fundamental antagonism between the intellectuals and the right-thinking, later the basis for A Well-Behaved Young Girl's Memoirs. The book also contains pictures of Simone de Beauvoir and Zaza growing up, as well as pictures of Zaza's friend Maurice Merleau-Ponty (Pascal Blondel in the novel) and of Simone de Beauvoir and Sartre.

It also contains authentic letters that Beauvoir and Zaza wrote to each other. The book has an afterword by Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir, Simone de Beauvoir's adopted daughter. With special sensitivity, she depicts the rigid, brittle bourgeois world that sets limits and expectations for women, the French family life of the time, and everyday life. The volume is an exceptional literary discovery. The Inseparables is a wonderful introduction to the youth of one of the world's most influential philosophers and a special deepening of her work ripe with exquisite turns of phrase. It is an intense, emotionally resonant, powerful and passionate story you're unlikely to forget. Highly recommended.

When the ‘lost’ novel of Simon de Beauvoir (in reality, put in a drawer because she wasn’t satisfied with it) came up for request I jumped at the chance to read it. Aware of her non-fiction but not having read any of it, I didn’t know she had also written fiction. I took to The Inseparables immediately, drawn in to Sylvie and Andrée’s story. It’s an excellent translation by Lauren Elkin, whose own book Flâneuse I highly recommend.
I did have a small degree of apprehension before starting to read – would this be beyond my comprehension? I’m sure there’s plenty of signalling and nuance here that has gone over my head. Sylvie and Andrée hold crisis talks across from a statue of the writer Alphonse Daudet; I expect he was carefully chosen although I don’t know enough to know why. None of that detracted from the simple enjoyment of reading the story, though. On the face of it, the title The Inseparables is obvious, but it is perhaps more wishful thinking on Sylvie’s part than reality; haven’t we all to some extent been so in thrall to someone that we attribute to them qualities they don’t really possess, imbue their ordinary words and actions with erroneous beauty and significance? Touched by Sylvie’s vulnerability, I wanted to comfort her; but such were the strictures of time and place, she feels she can’t even take a distraught Andrée’s hand.
I avoided the Introduction by Deborah Levy until after I had read the story, as it warned of spoilers. And I won’t reveal them here. Suffice to say that the end has all the brutality and abruptness of the denouement of La Traviata: it’s all over in a trice. This is a short book at 176 pages but not a slight one, commanding extra interest as it draws so heavily on Beauvoir’s lived experiences.

Well what can I say about this? I am new to Simone de Beauvoir's work but - what a writer!!!

This is the beautifully tender story of Andrée and Sylvie who fate places alongside each other at school. These two intelligent girls soon form a firm friendship that takes them through their teens and early adulthood. Based on the real life friendship of Simone (Sylvie) and Zaza (Andrée) this is fascinating, intriguing, touching, tender, emotional perfection. Though the story is narrated to us by Sylvie it's central focus is Andrée and the life choices that she makes. We cannot fail to see how Sylvie believes that Andrée is trapped by her family and how they have the capacity to bend Andrée to their will whenever they want. It is this suffocation that drives Andrée to make some decisions that have catastrophic consequences.

I really enjoyed reading this novella. I found the writing to be beautifully descriptive and the love that Sylvie had for Andrée was wonderfully portrayed. You get a real sense of how highly regarded Andrée was by Sylvie and how close they were as friends.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Vintage for letting me read The Inseparables, a newly published Simone de Beauvoir novel. I've never read any Simone de Beauvoir before, despite meaning to read The Second Sex for years, and I was intrigued by the prospect of an undiscovered novel, consigned to the drawer for years. I'm not sure what I thought of this, though. It's very short; it took me less than an hour and a half to read on Kindle. It's introspective and sparsely written, focusing on the two 'inseparables' of the title, schoolgirls Sylvie and Andrée, based on Simone and her best friend Zaza. It's an interesting story, with moral quandries about religion and sin and the claustrophobic pressure of family. But ultimately I think it suffered from its proximity to real life, and I can see why the author wasn't inclined to publish it during her lifetime. Reading the afterword, which explains how much this book was based on real life, clarified something I had felt while reading the book: the complexity of character is there, but the world-building and sense of context isn't, at least for me. And I guess that makes sense - it felt very much like someone trying to explain events to herself, trying to understand what had happened, and when you already know someone's character traits and family background, there's not as much need to elucidate that to a potential reader. For me, I think this was missing the richness and spontaneity that imagination brings to works of art - but it's certainly made me more keen to read Simone de Beauvoir. 3.5 stars.

"For Zaza
If there are tears in my eyes tonight, is it because you are no longer alive, or because I am? I should dedicate this story to you, but I know that you no longer exist anywhere, and my writing to you like this is pure literary artifice. In any case, this isn’t really your story, only one inspired by us. You were not Andrée; nor was I Sylvie, who speaks in my name.”

When I heard this book was being published in English, I was so excited! A new Simone de Beauvoir novel? Yes, please. It turned out to be more of a novella than a novel which was hardly a bad thing and the story it tells is brief but incredibly intimate. Inspired by a close friend of de Beauvoir's herself, the novel follows the intense albeit uneven friendship between Sylvia and Andrée. Despite Slyvia’s devotion to her friend, she is but a passive observer in her friend's life, waiting while Andrée suffers from heartbreak, domestic imprisonment and depression, all while loving her and trying to find her own space in the world. The novel toys with themes de Beauvior considers elsewhere in her thought, particularly the restrictions placed on individual freedom of choice, especially regarding women. In Andrée we have a character who feels as though she has no choice, no control over anything in her life and the narrative doesn’t disagree. At times though it was unclear as to how much was Andrée’s dramatics and how much was real and oppressive, and that engagement with its subjects was really interesting to read and relate to.
Ultimately I wish it was longer, with more room to interrogate its characters. I loved her novel She Came to Stay which was also inspired by real experiences, and I think if this was longer it would have more to say especially about the relationship between Sylvia and Andrée rather than the former being essentially a third wheel in her own story. What I loved though, was the detailed extras this edition provides with both the introduction and the historical notes, exposing the real-life inspirations and the context behind the story, even providing photographs of de Beauvoir and her inspiration, Zaza.
Overall this was a great read and I will definitely be purchasing a copy when it comes out. While it was clearly unpublished for a reason, this short book is a really subtle and earnest tribute to a friend who had a great impact on de Beauvoir.

Thank you for sharing this book with me. Simone de Beauvoir's writing is so good, and doesn't feel at all dated. The story about the girl's friendship and families is so intense, and the descriptions of the mores and manners of the upper classes are so vivid. A wonderful read.

This is a truly beautiful story about Andrèe and Sylvie, how they met at school and how they become inseparable.
This novel is set in 1954 five years after Simone De Beauvoirs death and was never published.
Simone's daughter discovers the manuscript hidden away with photographs and has for the first time translated into English.
The novel is written with such passion and heartache.

Superbly written The Inseparables is a novella that pairs an enthralling depiction of female friendship with a razor-sharp commentary on gender and religion This is the kind of work of fiction that reads like real life, unsurprising perhaps given that Beauvoir created Sylvie and Andrée after herself and her real-life friend Zaza Lacoin.

Written in a controlled and polished style The Inseparables presents us with a beguiling tale in which Sylvie, our narrator, recounts the enigmatic nature of her bond with Andrée. The two first meet as young girls while enrolled at a private Catholic school and, in spite of the divergence between their religious beliefs, they become, as the title itself suggests, inseparable. Due to the conventions of their time and society—the French bourgeois of the early 20th cent.—they cannot be too close and so have to refrain from being too intimate with one another, for example by addressing each other with the formal you.Still, they keep up a correspondence and talk at length to each other, earning themselves the disapproval of Andrée’s mother who frowns upon their, God forbid, long and possibly intimate conversations.

Sylvie is fascinated by Andrée, in particular, she seems hyperaware, intrigued even, by her self-divide. On the one hand Andrée, a devout Catholic, expresses conservative ideas and opinions, which make her appear particularly naive. On the other Andrée possesses a clever mind and a propensity for expressing surprisingly subversive thoughts. Andrée is a magnetic individual who oscillates between irreverence and conformity. Sylvie, who did not grow up to be a staunchly religious individual (apropos, in a diary entry beauvoir wrote: "i have no other god but myself"), cannot always reconcile herself to Andrée’s way of thinking and struggles to understand the loyalty that Andrée has for her family, which Sylvie herself views as suffocating.

As the two grow up we see how Andrée continues to struggle with understanding her own emotions, trying and failing to contain her fiercer self. We also see how her mother’s constant reprimand have affected her self-worth and distorted her view of herself. When she falls for Pascal, a puritanical young man who seriously considered being a priest, Andrée’s resolve to lead the kind of life that her family, as well as her society, is tested. She desperately wants to escape her present circumstances but this desperation ultimately results in self-sabotage. We witness her unravelling through Sylvie’s eyes, who, as much as she yearns to be of help, cannot ultimately save her.

Beauviour’s piercing commentary on gender, class, and religion was profoundly insightful. She addresses these things with clarity and exactness, illustrating how fatal oppression and repression are on a person’s psyche. What I found particularly touching, and relatable, in this novel was the unrequited nature of Sylve’s love for Andrée. Regardless of whether the love she feels for Andrée is a platonic one or a romantic one, we know that Andrée doesn’t feel the same passion for Sylve. Whether she’s unwilling or unable to reciprocate the iSylve’s feelings, we do not know for certain, however, we can see how deeply this realization cuts Sylvie. Sylvie is shown to be both jealous and resentful of Andrée’s family, holding them responsible for her friend’s unhappiness.

This novella’s subject did bring to mind Fleur Jaeggy’s Sweet Days of Discipline, which also explores an intense female friendship, Dorothy Strachey’s Olivia
(which is far more flowery and sentimental than this but also capture a youth’s unrequited love and longing for another) as well as novel such as Abigail and Frost In May (which are both set in all-girl schools and touch on female friendships and religion).
While Sylvie is both attuned and attentive to Andrée, her moods and beliefs, she does, like we all tend to do, idealise her given that she is her object of desire (whether this is desire is platonic or sexual, it's up to the reader to decide, i, to no one's surprise, felt that it was the latter).
This was a riveting read. The prose is sublime, the story an equal parts evocative and tragic exploration of young & unrequited love, heartache, independence, kinship and intimacy.

I will say that as much as I loved this I couldn’t help but the publisher’s short bio of Beauvoir, as well as Levy’s and the translator’s mentions of her, felt very incomplete. As far as I can recall they all omit to mention Beauvoir’s more ‘unethical’ behaviour. As a teacher, she had ‘relationships’ with her underage pupils and went on to sign a petition seeking to abrogate the age of consent in France (because of course age is just a number!). Here you might argue that those things have nothing to do with this novella or her friendship with Zaza (discussed by both Levy and the translator). But I maintain that they do. You can’t just mention the fact that she’s a feminist and try to analyse her real-life friendship with another woman or her commentary on female sexuality while at the same time omitting that in her lifetime she ('allegedly') groomed her underage female students and seemed in favour of pedophilia. That she did those things did not detract from my reading experience however it certainly made me a little bit more critical of our narrator's obsession towards her friend.

I was intrigued to read this previously unpublished work by Simone de Beauvoir and it didn't disappoint. Written in the first person, Sylvie, the narrator (based on the author) paints a vivid picture of her childhood friendship with Andrée. It is this friend (based on de Beauvoir's real life friend, Zaza) who gradually becomes the protagonist and around whom the major events of the story revolve. The storyline itself is strong but it's de Beauvoir's talent as a writer which turns it into something quite outstanding. In spite of its brevity, 'the Inseparables' offers an insight into the lives of girls and women at the time as well as issues of social class. It forces the reader to examine more closely the nature of love and its complexities and one cannot fail to be in awe of Sylvie's selfless attitude in this respect.. I found it unique and think it's a book with many layers, in which I'd discover something new if I were to read it again. Highly recommended.

Firstly, thank you for selecting me for an early copy of this book- although it's short, De Beauvoir manages to pack meaning into every paragraph. Here she explores the first love of a child, drenched in fascination as they begin to comprehend human relationships, differences, and emotions. In this case, it's De Beauvoir's own experience she describes in the guise of her first best friend, Andree, who she idolizes from the onset.

I'm not very well-versed in existentialism, however, this didn't stop me from gleaning the symbolism and depth with which the harsh constraints of the orthodox background De Beauvoir experienced as she recollects her childhood in France using the pen name Sylvie.

And where the death of Andree is tragic it's also indicative of the old friends who sometimes drift apart to grow into separate entities that neither recognize. The death of Andree is the death of friendship which cannot be one-sided; the point we leave each other and become strangers. Additionally, it is also symbolic of the rigid role her oldest friend had to play in her own family and, ultimately, her life - a role in a play that Sylvie doesn't have a part in, unwanted and spent by her affluent friend's family.

Yet still, De Beauvoir writes about her lost love (who did pass in real life), with an almost demigod status, devoid of bitterness, full of observational questions and leanings. An almost unrequited love that's never repeated, it was a gift to be able to revisit them through De Beauvoir's words.

The Inseparables are Sylvie and Andree , the pseudonyms for Simone de Beauvoir and her very close friend Elizabeth Lacoin (Zaza). They are given the name of the inseparables at school where they met aged 9 and were firm friends until Zaza's early death from meningitis at the age of 21.
I first encountered de Beauvoir's writings at university in the early 1970s as part of the women's liberation movement. I devoured Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, The Mandarins, She Came to Stay and The Second Sex. So I was very excited to read that there was a new previously unpublished novel from de Beauvoir. On reading it I realised that while the philosophy and lessons from The Second Sex had stayed with me over the almost 50 year gap since first reading, I had forgotten most of her previous fiction and autobiography. I did not remember Zaza whose friendship had such an influence on the author.
The novella is written very much from the perspective of Sylvie's view of Andree: her life; her family; her thoughts and actions. It does read very well as a piece of fictionalised autobiography and I was surprised to realise that it had been written when de Beauvoir was in her mid-40s, about 25 years after Zaza's death. Their friendship is described in a very immediate fashion and this reflects the fact that apparently de Beauvoir would dream about Zaza for the rest of her life.
I certainly enjoyed reading this book and it has encouraged me to return to Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter. The book is enhanced by an Introduction by Deborah Levy, an Afterword from Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir (the author's adopted daughter), notes from the translator Lauren Elkin about the language chosen by de Beauvoir and archive material including photographs and letters. Without these I do not think I would have found the book as interesting as I did and would have been left feeling there was something lacking from the works which had so inspired me in the 1970s.
Thank you to the publisher via Net Galley for a complimentary ARC of this book in return for an honest review.

I was a little sceptical about the book at first but was totally won over. I read it in three days and could barely put it down, despite its age or the complexity of the writing. A great read when you want to lose yourself in a book and forget the world.

This VINTAGE novella by Simone de Beauvoir intrigued me and never having read any of her previous books was looking forward to this short 164 pages.

THE INSEPARABLES by Simone de Beauvoir was written in French in 1954 and never published. The manuscript was found by Beauvoir's daughter, hidden in a drawer after her death in 1986. One reason given for the manuscript never being published, it was considered too ''intimate'' perhaps in 1954 but I think, not in 2021.

I did not see what all the fuss was about. The story of two young girls, Sylivie Lepage and Andree (Zara) Gallard, meeting at school and a friendship was formed. Andree's character I did not like and, I found Sylivie, in awe of Andree. On completion of the novella I did not have a feeling of enjoyment. The reviews I had read were glowing, so maybe this book is not for me. Read the novella and make your own mind up.

Personally, I found the book about friendship, growing up, religion and life in general.

I give a 3 star rating

I WOULD LIKE TO THANK NETGALLEY FOR THE OPPORTUNITY OF READING AN ADVANCED COPY OF THIS NOVELLA FOR AN HONEST REVIEW

Beautifully written and achingly intimate, Simon de Beauvoir's lost novel takes you through the joys and pains of friendship. The girls' connection and support as they push back against the confines of their lives was striking.

I have never read any of Simone de Beauvoir’s fiction before - I admit I haven’t read much of her non-fiction either - but this beautiful novella has me itching for more.

In The Inseparables, we follow two friends, Andrée and Sylvie, through their childhood and early adulthood. The story is semi-autobiographical, based heavily on Beauvoir’s own friendship with her childhood friend Zaza. It was clearly a very formative friendship for her on a number of levels, ending prematurely with Zaza’s tragic death.

It’s impossible to separate the truth from fiction in this story. Having never been published in the author’s lifetime, there is a sense that writing this story was an emotional, cathartic process, as she attempted to put into words what this friendship meant to her. Andrée’s pain and Sylvie’s yearning feel so vivid and real, you can’t help but feel your heart go out to them.

It’s also worth mentioning the translator, Lauren Elkin, who not only did a fantastic job of conveying the emotion of the original text (not that I can do a direct comparison) but also wrote a fascinating foreword explaining not only some of the decisions she made in translating the text but also highlighting some details that couldn’t be carried over into English. Both the foreword and the afterword, which gives us an insight into the biographical elements of the story, really added to the reading experience and made me appreciate it all the more.

Whether you’re a lifelong fan of Simone de Beauvoir, or if like me you haven’t yet read many of her books, this book is a gem of a must-read.

Thank you to the publisher for providing me with a free copy for review. All opinions are my own.