Old Age

Simone de Beauvoir (Author)
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 the lycées at Marseille and Rouen from 1931-1937, and in Paris from 1938-1943. After the war, she emerged as one of the leaders of the existentialist movement, working with Sartre on Les Temps Mordernes. The author of several books including The Mandarins (1957) which was awarded the Prix Goncourt, de Beauvoir was one of the most influential thinkers of her generation. She died in 1986.

Patrick O'Brian (Translator)
Patrick O'Brian's oeuvre includes the magnificent Aubrey and Maturin novels about the British navy during the Napoleonic Wars, a biography of Picasso, and the biography of Joseph Banks, as well as distinguished translations of Simone de Beauvoir, André Maurois and Jacques Soustelle. Patrick O'Brian was born in 1914 and spent his later years in France. He died in January 2000.