This captivating unpublished novel, dating from 1954, tells the first passionate and tragic friendship between two rebellious young girls, Simone de Beauvoir and Zaza of which Simone de Beauvoir gives a short testimony in Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter.

Written in first person, Simone de Beauvoir tells the beginning of this passionate and true friendship. By chance, it happens that Andrée (Zaza) joined the same class as Sylvie (Simone). Sylvie is instantly charmed by her new classmate. She admires her, she cherishes her, she does everything in order to make Andrée loving her back. Quickly they became inseparables until high school and Andrée’s tragic death.

This novel outlines Simone de Beauvoir’s personal battle against the conventional expectations and draws her intellectual and existential ambition.

Too intimate to be published in her lifetime by Simone de Beauvoir, this long unpublished text was recently found in her archives by her adopted daughter, Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir, who wrote the preface.